Value of Information for monitor location

This chapter presents a novel approach for locating monitors in a water system using the concept of Value of Information (VOI). This concept takes into account three main factors: 1) the belief that the decision-maker has about the state of the water system before having any information; 2) the consequences associated with the decision of having to choose among several possible actions given the state of the water system; and 3) the evaluation and update of new information when it becomes available. The methodology uses water level time series generated by hydrodynamic models at every computational point, each one being a potential monitor site. The method is tested in two case studies of completely different nature: the Magdalena River in Colombia, and a polder system in The Netherlands. It is shown that the methodology can be used as a complementary approach to existing methods that focus the monitor location problem exclusively on information-theory.