End-User Applications and Decision Support

The future of each National Meteorological and Hydrological Service (NMHS) lies in its ability to develop and more effectively deliver product and service outcomes that are of immediate, recognizable value to a nation's social and economic needs.

In addition to mitigating natural hazards, high-quality weather, water and climate forecasts can contribute substantially to meeting the triple sustainability goals of societal improvement, economic development and environmental health.

There are urgent needs to:

• Increase energy use efficiency and reliability
• Reduce weather-related transportation delays
• Ensure public safety through enhanced government services
• Mitigate risk to equity in the financial services sector
• Augment agricultural productivity
• Safeguard environmental well-being

Products and Services

SAIC is developing business support tools in the form of assessments, decision aids and business process reengineering (BPR) strategies, which incorporate environmental forecast information as part of the response to these needs. Applications include:

Industry Needs, Requirements Definition and Demonstration Projects
Assessing and demonstrating the value of weather, climate and ocean information in National Economies

SAIC has conducted assessment and demonstration projects for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to help them define the value of weather, climate and ocean information in the operations and planning of industry value chains.

• Oil and Gas Sector
• Utilities Sector
• Water Management Services
• Recreation and Tourism Sector
• Financial Services Sector

Oil and Gas Sector

Access, exploration, production, refining and transport all incorporate environmental forecast information into their decision aids. SAIC provides the environment forecast definitions needed for decision aids used in this sector.

Oil and Gas Sector Decision Support:

• Platform logistics
• Ship scheduling
• Ship routing
• Construction design
• Capacity
• Loading weights
• Storage plans
• Pipeline flow management
• Future well planning
• Equipment design
• Pipeline routing.

Utilities Sector

To meet business needs, generation, transmission, distribution, grid management, regional energy management design, power plant siting, end-user procurement strategies, power pricing, power marketing strategies, compliance reporting, and emissions control all require forecast information.

There are decision support systems for most of the operations, usually in the form of decision model software, which have the environmental variable and appropriate lead time as input parameters to the model (e.g., electricity load forecast models).

Utilities Sector Decision Support:

• Timing of generation unit commitment
• Fuel mix choice
• Load forecasting
• Revenue projections
• Fuel pricing
• Transaction and tariff event planning
• Workload scheduling
• Proactive emissions portfolio management
• Energy generation
• Renewables integration
• Optimal asset placement
• Infrastructure development

Water Management Services

Water resource management ensures water for agriculture, power production, wetlands restoration, recreation, transport, drinking water supply and sanitation. Drought and floods affect this supply. Precipitation, temperature, runoff, groundwater and stream flow are key variables controlling water availability.

SAIC develops decision tools to better utilize weather and climate forecasts. We assess major risks, develop mitigation strategies, and integrate forecast information and hydrological modeling into decision making. Using seasonal forecast information, we predict irrigation-induced load and peak demand, and quantify climatological factors that influence the demand.

Water Services Decision Support:

• Demand and supply forecasting and balancing
• Regional water management strategies
• Emergency Response preparedness
• Irrigation and wetlands strategies
• Drinking water and sanitation use
• Hydro power optimization
• Recreation management
• Water engineering and security
• Resource Planning
• Regulatory compliance
• Dam design criteria
• Insurance
• Water borne transportation management
• Water utilities planning
• Water and wave power generation.

Recreation and Tourism Environmental Information Assessments

Assessing the value of weather, water and climate information in the global recreation and tourism industry

The recreation and tourism industry is a diverse, trillion-dollar global industry. It includes the travel industry, visitor attractions, recreational fishing and boating, and the accommodations sector (with associated food services and transportation). Environmental information provides input to long-range strategic planning for developers, commercial resort and port construction planning, as well as the shorter-term operations of hotel managers and public leisure facilities operators.

SAIC has assessed the regional needs of this major industry to provide requirements to the designers who are building global ocean and meteorological observing systems, and to begin capacity building needed to meet the defined requirements. The industry uses decision support systems, which input environmental parameters to guide the decision outcomes for operations, planning and investment.

Recreation and Tourism Sector Decision Support:

• Investment decisions
• Finance and budgeting
• Hotel, port and resort siting and development
• Destination management
• Landscape design
• Construction code setting
• Property maintenance
• Engineering and facilities management
• Risk assessment
• Public relations
• Marketing
• Communications
• Regulatory compliance reporting
• Seasonal financial planning
• Revenue projections
• Building energy management
• Cruise line route planning
• National park management.

Environmental Forecast Valuation in the Financial Services Sector

The Financial Services Sector (FSS) underpins virtually all other private and to a large extent, public sectors and organizations. Services range from insurance and asset management to pension funds and commodities trading. One of the underlying concerns and drivers for information is the assessment and limitation of risks to equity across the whole sector. Several instruments have been devised to assess and control risk. These instruments rely upon environmental information to help determine the magnitude of risk.

To identify and quantify risk appropriately, as well as structure and execute a solution, companies need additional information for better decision making. From a company's viewpoint, environmental risk is the uncertainty in cash flow and earnings due to environmental volatility.

SAIC is conducting studies to engage the policy and marketplace end users in the optimal use of environmental forecast information in their business practices. Several members of the banking and insurance sectors are co-hosting these demonstration projects with SAIC in their institutions. These studies illustrate the process by which the forecast information is translated into business knowledge and document the impact of this knowledge on business outcomes.

Financial Services Sector Decision Support:

• Strategic plan development and review
• Systems and business processes review
• Weather integration benchmarking
• Impact assessment
• Risk assessments
• Impact on company lending practices
• Tailored knowledge management processing
• Management strategies
• Training and skills building
• Integrating into industry metrics
• Systems integration
• Sustainability policy