Ventana software support forum

Posted by =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Paula_Ant=E3o?= <pantaosilva@gmail.com> Dear all,

I am currently working on a water resources management model that is being built with the participation of main stakeholders (farmers, municipalities, regional authorities for tourism and natural protection areas) belonging to a geographical unit area - a river basin/watershed.

The main target of the model is to simulate different policy scenarios in order to select the ones which support the sustainable (future) use of the water available in the river basin (its water resources). It means that the future available water resources will be capable of supporting the different water uses, not only for domestic (including seasonal tourism), industrial and agriculture abstractions but also for the maintenance of existent aquatic ecosystems and forest resources, in a balanced and integrated way.

I would like to discuss some thoughts on what variables and relationships to include in the dynamic model.

Is anyone working (or worked in the past) with such type of management models?

Many thanks and best regards,
Paula Silva

--
Paula Ant=E3o da Silva
Doutoranda/PhD Student
Universidade Nova de Lisboa/New University of Lisbon
Lisboa, Portugal
Posted by =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Paula_Ant=E3o?= <pantaosilva@gmail.com> posting date Sun, 9 Oct 2005 07:47:19 +0100

Posted by ""Keith Linard"" <klin4960@bigpond.net.au>
One of my SDM postgraduate teams built a 'demonstration' policy simulator in conjunction with the Australian 'Murray-Darling Basin Authority'. The key 'top level' problems identified by authority staff related to 'juggling' the competing interests of:
* Competing State (Province) demands for water for their irrigation farmers
* Demand from a major city (>1,000,000 population) at the very end of the river system for potable water
* Demand from recreational stakeholders (tourist parks & aquatic sporting
users) for adequate water levels in both river system itself (mainly tourism
parks) and in the various dams (eg, for sports boating / water skiing etc)
* Requirement to prevent (poisonous for human & animals) Blue-Green Algae outbreaks which result from too low water levers in river system.
* Problems associated with soil salinity when river flow becomes too low.
* Demand from environmental groups to return river system to its historic flow patterms, including periodic flooding of historic flood plains.
* Demand from flood plain dwellers / users (eg tourism parks) that their areas not be flooded.

The task given to the students was to build a demonstration decision support simulator which could be operated by the key stakeholders (Environmental: historic flows, blue-green algae, salinity); Recreational: high river levels, high dam levels & blue-green algae; Flood Plain Dwellers: categorised into 2 regions; & Citizens of the city at the end of the river
system) with the intent of helping the different groups realise the impact of their wishes on other stakeholders, and thereby encourage dialogue rather than confrontation.

The simulator (in Powersim Constructor) is at a very high level, and, whilst river flow simulation is based on sound data, much of the rest of the model uses unvalidated qualitative relationships. With that proviso, I am happy to make it available.

Keith Linard
134 Gisborne Road
Bacchus Marsh
Vic 3340 AUSTRALIA
Email: klin4960@bigpond.net.au
Posted by ""Keith Linard"" <klin4960@bigpond.net.au>
posting date Mon, 10 Oct 2005 07:44:14 +1000

Posted by ""Simonovic, Slobodan"" <ssimonovic@eng.uwo.ca>
Paula
You may want to check these two references. They are both dealing with larger scale than the river basin but do offer what you are looking for:

Simonovic, S.P., (2002) ""World Water Dynamics: Global Modeling of Water Resources"", Journal of Environmental Management,66(3):249-267.

Simonovic, S.P., and V. Rajasekaram, (2004) ""Integrated Analyses of Canada's Water Resources: A System Dynamics Model "", Canadian Water Resources Journal, 29(4):223-250.

Cheers

Slobodan P. Simonovic, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Professor and Research Chair
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B9
http://www.slobodansimonovic.com
Posted by ""Simonovic, Slobodan"" <ssimonovic@eng.uwo.ca> posting date Sun, 16 Oct 2005 08:19:07 -0400