Integrated Water Resources Management

Introduction Optimization is a very large topic, even within the confines of water resources planning and management. For today, I would like to focus on a single application, which I found while reading the Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA). I highly recommend JAWRA as a great source on all things water resources and for updates on the latest issues. In the February 2011 issue (yes, I'm a little behind on my reading), there is an article called "Optimal Pollution Trading without Pollution Reductions: A Note". I would like to take the time to write up a review of this article. Pollutant Trading Application Pollutant trading is in it's infancy - the experimental stages. Current challenges include high transaction costs, difficulties in transferring liabilities, and pollution allowances in existing programs. This article describes how two different types of polluters (farm and factory) can collaborate in order to reduce the impact on rece...

It is necessary to study not only parts and processes in isolation, but also to solve the decisive problems found in the organization and order unifying them, resulting from dynamic interaction of parts, and making the behavior of parts different when studied in isolation or within the whole. Systems Modular systems modeling is an approach to modeling that can be very useful for applications in integrated water resources management because of its inherent structure and organization. Every system is designed to achieve some objective. A system is made up of a network of interrelated components, which may consist of data, data processors, reporting elements, and subsystems. The term "Systems Modeling" was introduced in the early 1960's and became famous shortly after the birth of FORTRAN. Since that time, it grew steadily in popularity until finally plateauing in the year 2000. The term "Systems Approach" peaked in 1975 and has since been on a steady decline...