Multi Modeling Approach for Effective Water Resource Management in NUST

Abstract

Freshwater is the naturally occurring water on earth except for brackish water and seawater. Water Scarcity has affected freshwater resources of all the countries including Pakistan and has become one of the largest global risks. This situation is becoming worse day by day as it is expected that the urban population will exceed the rural population by 2050 due to rapid urbanization. Hence, water resource management in urban areas is also essential like other water-consuming sectors i.e agriculture, industrial. Water resource management can be done by managing both supply and consumption sides. A lot of work has been done on management of supply but due to the lack of proper water metering systems at the household level (in many countries like Pakistan), consumption side management is a challenging task. A framework is required to forecast water consumption along with unmet demand, and for testing of new water-saving rules. A Water Supply and Consumption Framework based on bottom-up agentbased modeling and fluid dynamics modeling have been proposed. Its primary goal is to simulate water consumption and the unmet demand of urban households. It simulates the water consumption of a house by simulating its inhabitant's behavior and interactions and also simulate a water distribution system to see its effects on the water consumption of a neighborhood. Actors (houses, blocks, inhabitants, water storage tanks, tube wells) are modeled as agents while the water distribution system is modeled using fluid dynamics. The global effect that emerges due to the interaction of these agents helps water authorities to devise new policies/strategies to fight against the problem of water scarcity. The functionality of the framework is demonstrated using a case study of NUST water resources and residential areas. The main purpose of this research is to use M&S tools and methods to help water regulatory authorities to form effective strategies/plans.