Submit to Sustainability Review for Sustainability Propose a Special Issue

Journal Browser

Sustainable Water Resource Management

Print Special Issue Flyer
Special Issue Editors
Special Issue Information
Keywords
Published Papers

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Resources and Sustainable Utilization".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2019) | Viewed by 15943

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Phoebe Koundouri

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of International & European Economic Studies, Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece
Interests: resource and energy economics and econometrics; sustainable development and innovation; interdisciplinary approaches for sustainable development; climate change modeling and policy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Integrated management of natural resources is at the core of the sustainability concept as it seeks for solutions that are environmentally friendly, economically viable, and socially acceptable. Management of water resources, in particular, requires sustainable and interdisciplinary approaches that reflect the multifunctional nature of water—water being a physical and biological commodity, a fundamental commodity for life and social well-being, a commercial product, a cultural and recreational feature, and occasionally a hazard.

This Special Issue aims to attract scientific publications that deal with the multifaceted nature of water and promote integrated sustainable management of freshwater resources aiming at innovation in ideas, technologies, approaches, and policy adaptation. The Editors of this Special Issue are interested in research articles based on theoretical or practical analyses, conceptual articles, review articles, and case study driven analyses that link water resources to society and address natural, economic, and policy concerns. Studies and analysis of views on the assessment and mitigation of water-related problems, changes on the water cycle, especially relevant under the climate change reality, assessment of approaches and processes that aim at ensuring viability of the water resources (physical, social, and economic), risk and uncertainty assessment, as well as topics situated within the policy frameworks and initiatives at global and/or EU level linked to the sustainable management of water resources are particularly welcomed.

Prof. Dr. Phoebe Koundouri
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Sustainable management of water resources
Environmental sustainability
Economical sustainability
Social sustainability
Water stress
Changes on the water cycle
Climate change and water
Water policy framework
Risk
Uncertainty

Published Papers (5 papers)

Download All Papers

Research

15 pages, 1771 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Analysis of the Sustainable Use of Geothermal Waters and Future Development Possibilities—A Case Study from the Opole Region, Poland

by Joanna Boguniewicz-Zabłocka, Ewelina Łukasiewicz and Domenico Guida

Sustainability 2019, 11(23), 6730; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11236730 - 27 Nov 2019

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3064

Abstract

To achieve future energy policy goals, efficient energy systems based on geothermal water should be used more widely. The presented case study from the Opole region in Poland shows that there is great potential for investors interested in recovering geothermal energy in new facilities, for example to heat the domestic districts. The geological structure of the Opolskie Voivodship demonstrates the presence of rich geothermal water resources. Currently, these resources are not used for power engineering in the Opole Region, except for in a few passive houses. The existing boreholes have waters which reach temperatures ranging from 20 to 90 °C and prove that the region displays a high energy potential. The results from the calculations here show that the use of three low temperature geothermal intakes could be possible in three locations, namely in Grabin, in the area of Nysa, and in Wołczyn. This could generate thermal energy at a level of 34 GWh/year. This corresponds to the heat demand of approximately 1150 detached houses with an area of 150 square meters. The results show that thermal energy for a medium size housing district can be supplied from a single borehole. The temperatures of water in the analyzed intakes determine their method of use as a lower heat source for heat pumps. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Water Resource Management)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

23 pages, 8448 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Implementation of Simple Strategies to Improve Wellfield Management in Arid Regions: The Case Study of Wadi Al Arab Wellfield, Jordan

by Mohammad Alqadi, Armin Margane, Marwan Al Raggad, HE Ali Subah, Markus Disse, Ibraheem Hamdan and Gabriele Chiogna

Sustainability 2019, 11(21), 5903; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11215903 - 24 Oct 2019

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 4020

Abstract

Groundwater is the main source of drinking water supply in Jordan. Over the past 30 years, many wellfields have been drilled and expanded to cover increasing drinking water demand caused by natural population growth, development of life standards and as a result of the influx of refugees to Jordan. In particular, northern Jordan groundwater resources have been severely depleted. Therefore, water suppliers and utilities have been increasingly challenged to meet water demand and deliver water of adequate quality and quantity to households in a timely manner. Meeting these objectives requires good data management, proper maintenance of groundwater wells, and effective wellfield management plans. We developed a novel monitoring strategy that allows the collection of relevant data for wellfield managers (e.g., yield, static and dynamic water level, as well as energy consumption). The new monitoring system, implemented in 2017, has greatly enhanced data availability in comparison to the situation between 2012 and 2016. The data are used in an operational decision support tool based on simple interpretation of the field observations. The implementation of the project was done using both bottom-up and top-down approaches for the Wadi Al Arab wellfield. Our results evidence that (i) simple strategies can lead to a significant improvement of wellfield management, reducing the maintenance time of the wells though appropriate monitoring (from an average of four days/maintenance/well in 2012 to less than one day/maintenance/well in 2017); (ii) the joint combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches leads to an effective implementation of the monitoring system; (iii) the simplicity of the proposed monitoring strategy makes it suitable for further implementation in other wellfields in Jordan and countries in a similar situation of both data and water scarcity. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Water Resource Management)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

17 pages, 3620 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Improving Dam and Reservoir Operation Rules Using Stochastic Dynamic Programming and Artificial Neural Network Integration Model

by Sabah Saadi Fayaed, Seef Saadi Fiyadh, Wong Jee Khai, Ali Najah Ahmed, Haitham Abdulmohsin Afan, Rusul Khaleel Ibrahim, Chow Ming Fai, Suhana Koting, Nuruol Syuhadaa Mohd, Wan Zurina Binti Jaafar, Lai Sai Hin and Ahmed El-Shafie

Sustainability 2019, 11(19), 5367; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11195367 - 28 Sep 2019

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2545

Abstract

The simulation elevation-surface area-storage interrelationship of a reservoir is a crucial task in developing ideal water release policies for reservoir and dam operations. In this study, an inclusive (stochastic dynamic programming-artificial neural network (SDP-ANN)) model was established and applied to obtain an ideal reservoir operation strategy for Sg. Langat reservoir in Malaysia. The problems associated with the management of water resources mostly relate to uncertainty and the stochastic nature of the reservoir inflow, and the SDP-ANN model is meant to consider uncertainty in the input parameters such as reservoir inflow and reservoir evaporation losses. The performance of the SDP-ANN model was compared to that of the stochastic dynamic programming-autoregression (AR) model. The primary aim of the model is to decrease the squared deviation from the desired water release, which we determined by comparing the SDP-AR and SDP-ANN model performances. The results indicate that the SDP-ANN model demonstrated greater resilience and reliability with a lower supply deficit. Consequently, the case study results confirm that the SDP-ANN model performs better than the SDP-AR model in obtaining the best parameters for the reservoir operation. Specifically, a comparison of the models shows that the proposed Model 2 increased the reliability and resilience of the system by 7.5% and 6.3%, respectively. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Water Resource Management)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

18 pages, 2804 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Limitations of Water Resources to Crop Water Requirement in the Irrigation Districts along the Lower Reach of the Yellow River in China

by Lei Liu, Jianqin Ma, Xiuping Hao and Qingyun Li

Sustainability 2019, 11(17), 4680; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11174680 - 28 Aug 2019

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2401

Abstract

To analyze the water-resource limitations for crops in irrigation districts along the lower reach of the Yellow River, we used the single-crop coefficient method provided by FAO-56 to analyze crop water demand (CWD) and irrigation water requirement (IWR) for the main crops (winter wheat, summer maize, and cotton) from 1971 to 2015. The impact of climate threats on IWR was then quantified based on the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI), following which the conflicts between water demand and water supply were analyzed. The results show that about 75.4% of the total annual IWR volume is concentrated from March to June. Winter wheat is the largest water consumer; it used an average of 67.9% of the total IWR volume. The study area faced severe water scarcity, and severe water deficits occurred mainly between March and June, which is consistent with the occurrence of drought. With the runoff from the Yellow River Basin further decreasing in the future, the water supply is expected to become more limited. IWR is negatively correlated with the SPEI. Based on the relationship between SPEI and IWR, the water allocation for irrigation can be planned at different timescales to meet the CWD of different crops. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Water Resource Management)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

19 pages, 8843 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Identification of Polluted Sites in Four Major Rivers in Kuantan, Malaysia based on Water Chemistry Estimates of Aquatic Microbial Activity

by Daisuke Kozaki, Norhasmira Idayu binti Harun, Chan Hein Chong, Murni Hayati binti Esraruddin, Nor Atiah binti Yunus, Aini Syazana binti Derahman, Kee Seng Pu, Nurul Syazwani binti Alias, Kumutharani A/P Annamalai, Sarmila Nagappan, Mohd Hasbi bin Ab. Rahim and Mashitah M. Yusoff

Sustainability 2019, 11(14), 3813; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11143813 - 11 Jul 2019

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3359

Abstract

Kuantan in Pahang, Malaysia has experienced rapid development and environmental degradation over the past decade following the implementation of The National Physical Plan 2005. To assess water quality and identify polluted areas in the region, we measured the water chemistry and microbial activity in response to land-use changes for four major rivers, namely, Pahang, Kuantan, Belat, and Galing, using data from ion chromatography and portable water quality monitoring devices. The following were concluded: (1) significant differences in chemical oxygen demand, COD concentration among all monitored rivers suggest that COD and its associated biological reactions are key parameters to assess anthropogenic water quality degradation in our study area; (2) due to the low anthropogenic wastewater pollution, the dominant microbial reactions in the Pahang, Kuantan, and Belat rivers were aerobic microbial oxidation of organic compounds and nitrification by nitrifying bacteria, allowing the rivers to self-purify; (3) the Galing River predominantly experiences anaerobic decomposition of organic compounds through microbial denitrification and sulfate reduction due to the heavy anthropogenic land use in the river basin; and (4) the western side of the Galing River and upstream sites located within the industrial and business/servicing areas in the Kuantan city center experience the heaviest pollution. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Water Resource Management)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

Journal Menu

Journal Browser

Sustainable Water Resource Management

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editor

Special Issue Information

Keywords

Published Papers (5 papers)

Research

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI