Rodolfo Soncini-Sessa received his PhD on System Analysis at Politecnico di Milano, Italy in 1972; he was with the Water Group of the International Institute for System Analysis (IIASA) several times since 1975 and thought Water Management in some Italian Universities before being full professor of Natural Resources Management at the Politecnico di Milano. He is chair of the IFAC TC on Modelling & Control of Environmental Systems, and in the Editorial Boards of Water International and Journal of Environmental Modelling and Software. His main research interests are in the design of DSS for participatory decision making in the area of water resources.

• 1. Making Decisions: a Difficult Problem. A. Setting the Verbano Project. 2. Reconnaissance: Territory, Stakeholders and Regulation. 3. The Options for Interventions. 4. Criteria and Indicators. 5. Defining Actions and Formulating the Design Problem. 6. Identifying the Model. 7. The Control Problem. 8. Estimating the Effects. 9. Evaluation. 10. Comparison. B. Identifying the Reasonable Alternatives. 11. Designing Alternatives and Evaluation. 12. Comparison: the First Negotiation Step. 13. Comparison: the Second Negotiations Step. 14. Mitigation Measures. C. The Final Decision. 15. Summary of the Project. 16. The Final Decision. 17. Implementation. Bibliography. Index.