Schematic figure of the processes included in the Community Water Model. Credit: IIASA
The growing world population and continued economic development will likely require a significant increase in water demand, especially in developing regions. At the same time, climate change is already having global, regional and local impacts on water availability. Ensuring that changing supply can meet continuously growing demand without compromising the sensitive aquatic environments from which it stems, is clearly a major challenge that will require science-informed strategies and policies.
To assist in the accurate assessment of the water supply and the demands of both people and the environment,Provide scientific information and guidance to policy makers around the world by seeking solutions to global problems through applied systems analysis. In this way, work helps improve human well-being and protect the environment.“” class = “glossaryLink”> IIASA Researchers have developed a large-scale hydrological and water resource model: the Community Water Model (CWatM). The model can simulate the movement, distribution and management of water globally and regionally to assess water availability in terms of water demand and environmental needs. It includes a description of how future water demand will evolve in response to socioeconomic change and how climate change will influence water availability. The integrated modeling framework considers water demand from agriculture, household needs, energy, industry, and the environment.
The community water model has a modular structure that is open source and uses state-of-the-art data storage protocols as input and output data, while being community driven to promote team work among the water community in general. It is flexible enough to switch between scales, integrate with water quality and hydro-economics, and link with other IIASA models such as MESSAGE, the Global Biosphere Management Model (GLOBIOM), BeWhere and the Integrated Environmental Policy (EPIC ) ) model.
Because the modeling framework is general, it can also be adapted to address new interdisciplinary research questions, meaning it opens the door to many potential applications for exploring connections between the nexus aspects of energy, land, and water. According to the researchers, the main novelty of the model is that it combines the good practices existing in various scientific communities beyond hydrology itself, instead of providing completely new concepts to model hydrological and socioeconomic processes. Furthermore, the model is customizable to the needs of different users with different levels of programming skills. This will support and allow different stakeholder groups and scientific communities beyond hydrology and of different capacities to commit to a hydrological model in support of their research.
“The Community Water Model represents one of the new key elements of the IIASA Water Program to assess water supply, water demand, and environmental needs at the global and regional level. It is the first step towards developing an integrated modeling framework, which can be used to explore the financial tradeoffs between different water management options, covering both water supply infrastructure and demand management. With this framework, we can provide vital information to decision makers and policy makers, ”says Peter Burek, IIASA researcher and lead author of a new document describing the development of the model published in Geoscientific model development.
The Community Water Model will continue to be developed to include more features, such as a routing scheme related to reservoirs and canals to better simulate the availability of water in agricultural and urban contexts, and the ability to explore aspects related to groundwater management. .
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Reference: “Development of the community water model (CWatM v1.04): a high resolution hydrological model for global and regional assessment of integrated water resources management” by Burek P, Satoh Y, Kahil T, Tang T, Greve P, Smilovic M, Guillaumot L, Zhao F and Wada Y, July 21, 2020. Geoscientific model development.
DOI: 10.5194 / gmd-13-3267-2020
The model can be accessed here: https: /
