Ford, Andrew, "From the Snake River to the Idagon Management Flight Simulators and Water Resource Planning", 1997 August 19-1997 August 22

From the Snake River to the Idagon
Management Flight Simulators and
Water Resource Planning

Andrew Ford
Washington State University

This paper describes two case studies on the usefulness of Management Flight Simulators (MFS).
The first case study involves the “Snake River Explorer”, an MFS to simulate the long term
changes in surface water flows, ground water flows, crop production, and electricity generation on
the Snake. The model was tested in a one day workshop with thirty individuals who met in Boise,
Idaho to experiment the model.

The second case involves “The Idagon”, a MEFS for a hypothetical river in the Northwest. The
Idagon allows college students to experiment with changes in reservoir operation, efficiencies of
irrigation, land development programs and land fallowing programs as they search for the “best”
combination of policies to improve the simulated performance of the hypothetical river. The Idagon
was designed for “group learning” workshops in which students or planners invest the time to
meet in one. room to conduct the computer experiments in a synchronous manner. The paper will

: explain the use of Internet-materials that may be used asynchronously to allow students to prepare
for the workshop in an efficient manner.

The paper will conclude with a discussion of the advantages of a simulator designed for a real river
like the Snake versus a simulator for a hypothetical river like The Idagon.

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