Motivation to provide sustainable development for the benefit of present and future generations has led engineers to search for improved design techniques which address all system impacts. The construction of multipurpose reservoirs is a good example of the difficulty in achieving sustainable development given the grand scale, and complex nature of project impacts on society, environment, and the economy. Sustainability of reservoirs implies a need for the control and adjustment of reservoir design nd operation characteristics, resulting in optimal, or near optimal system performance throughout the life time of the reservoir. This work focuses on Milan Zeleny's de novo programming, a system design approach which links system flexibility, efficiency, and optimal system design. It is shown that within multiobjective decision making framework, de novo programming may allow the decision maker to achieve an ideal or metaoptimal system performance, or improve the performance of compromise solutions, through the modification or shaping of the feasible region of decision alternatives. As a result, this method shifts the traditional approach of optimization, from optimization of a given reservoir system, to the design of the optimal reservoir system. If the formulation of system impacts is possible at the design stage, de novo programming may be used as a tool for sustainable reservoir design.