Water Resources Management - changing Landscape

摘要

This paper presents a discussion of changing practice of water resources management. Given the complexity of the issues in environmental, social and economic terms, it seems that many new ideas are converging towards an integrated water management framework to allow communities and their governments to resolve the difficult conflicts and trade — offs that continually arise in ever changing political environments. The concept of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) as put forward by the Global Water Partnership (GWP) has received widespread support, because it does address the interconnections among water, development and sustainability. One of the main remaining challenges is the adequate methodological support for successful implementation of IWRM concept. This paper presents the system dynamics (SD) simulation modeling as one of the possible tools for supporting IWRM. The paper briefly presents the IWRM concept and then focuses on the introduction of the SD simulation approach. The discussion is illustrated with an example of application of SD approach in modeling a multipurpose reservoir in Manitoba, Canada. Paper ends with the discussion of potential utility of SD approach in managing the Yellow River water.