Sustainable Water Management Solutions for Large Cities (Proceedings of symposium S2 held during the Seventh IAHS Scientific Assembly at Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, April 2005). IAHS Publ. 293, 2005, 65-72

1 Department of Civil Engineering, Federal University of Campina Grande, CP 505,

2 Department of Environment, Water and Mineral Resources of the State of Paraíba, João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil

Abstract Campina Grande is an important technological, industrial and educational centre in semiarid Northeast Brazil. Historically, the city is affected by water supply problems, mainly due to its geographical location and the absence of effective water resources management that considers both the supply and demand sides. This paper describes a decision-making process in selecting urban water demand management alternatives for the city of Campina Grande, based on real decision makers preferences over 13 presented alternatives. These preferences were identified and the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution (Fang et al., 1993) was applied to resolve intra and inter-group opinion divergences. Three conflicts were simulated and the outcomes showed which water demand management alternatives are consensual for that city. This work reaffirms the feasibility of conflict analysis as support tool in a participative decision-making process.

Key words decision making; semiarid; water resources management