Water Resources Modeling - Support Evaluation Of Water Demand and Supply

Growing Global Demand for Water Resources

The increasing population coupled with the overall economic growth is significantly raising the demand for water especially across developing regions. Along with this, variation in climatic conditions has already impacted water availability on a global, regional, and local basis. These challenges associated with the changing supply of water and to meet the continuously evolving demand without affecting sensitive aquatic environments need to be addressed with proper strategies by science.

Development of the Community Water Model (CWatM)

For this, researchers of IIASA have produced a large-scale water resources model – the Community Water Model (CWatM) that will help in supporting the accurate assessment of water supply &demand. This model can initiate the management, movement, and supply of water on global as well as regional level to assess the availability of the water in terms of demand and environmental needs. Moreover, it also involves an evaluation of how water demand will go forward in the future due to socioeconomic and climate changes.

Modular Design and Advanced Data Capabilities

This efficient modular composition developed by IIASA researchers open up and utilize state-of-the-art information storage protocols as input and output information, at the same time it is community-driven to improve the team’s work across different consumers. Moreover, it is able to be easily modified to alter between scales and to incorporate with quality of water and the hydro-economy. Besides, it can be interconnected or linked with other IIASA models such as the Global Biosphere Management Model (GLOBIOM), MESSAGE, the Environmental Policy Integrated (EPIC) model framework, and BeWhere,.

It can be also adopted to deal with new interdisciplinary research which opens new scope for a potential application that helps to explore the relation between interconnected aspects of land, water, and energy. As per the researchers, instead of being hydrology itself and providing new concepts for hydrological and socioeconomic processes, this model merges with existing good practice in numerous scientific communities. In addition to this, the model is also customizable to fulfill the needs of consumers with different levels of programming skills.

Interdisciplinary Applications and Customization

This model helps in guiding different groups of stakeholders and scientific communities apart from hydrology and of varying capacities to involve with a hydrological modular structure in support of their studies and investigations. “The Community Water Model established by IIASA Water Program presents one of the new and advanced programs that feature the assessment of water demand, water supply, and consumers & environmental needs at the global as well as regional level. It is a first initiative towards creating an integrated modeling structure that can be easily utilized to learn more about the economic trade-offs between various options of water management options, that involves both water supply infrastructure and water demand management. The researcher Peter Burek, of the IIASA, has stated that with this new model they are able to deliver important data to strategic decisions and policymakers.

The Community Water Model will continue to advance in order to add more features such as routing schemes associated with the reservoirs in order to facilitate better availability of water across both agricultural and urban areas.