Water Resources Planning Toolkits for Climate Resiliency and Economic Sustainability
A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water and Climate Change".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 July 2025 | Viewed by 8231
Special Issue Editors
2. Department of Civil Engineering, University of California, Merced, Merced, CA, USA
Interests: agricultural systems; hydro-ecology; irrigation and drainage management; sensor networks; TMDL modelling; water quality; decision support
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: hydrodynamic modelling; nonlinear system dynamics; signal processing; TMDL analysis; decision support
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The multi-sectoral environmental impacts of climate change and unsustainable global economic development on water resources management require a radical rethinking of the tools available to analysts, policy makers, and managers. In the agricultural sector, addressing environmental problems associated with irrigated agriculture (such as excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides, aquifer depletion, land subsidence, seasonal drying of rivers, waterlogging, and rootzone salinization) requires tools that are more integrated and more easily adapted to consider and assess novel strategies. Likewise, for municipal and industrial sectors, that have traditionally relied upon high-quality, potable water supplies—tools are needed to explore innovative reuse and recycling strategies that minimize treatment and pollutant disposal costs. The environmental sector is recognized as a co-equal beneficial user of water resources through accounting mechanisms, such as the concept of environmental services. However, these principles are still not fully integrated with more traditional resource planning techniques.
The advance of remote sensing platforms, increase in programmatic data collection by nodal agencies and states, and ease of access to social media have democratized data and made cross-sectoral data analysis and visualization targeted to stakeholders possible. Concurrently, rapid development of computer models and computational technology has meant that these tools have become increasingly important for tackling a wide range of water resources and environmental management issues and for supporting regulatory compliance. Model-based simulation approaches have advanced in parallel with developments in the design and application of decision-support tools and techniques for more effective communication and visualization—GIS and remote sensing being the most widespread and accessible. Statistical and machine-learning methods are being used to support (and even supplant) more traditional simulation models to improve the estimation of temporal dynamics associated with pollutant concentrations and loads and other impacting phenomena.
This Special Issue on “Water resources planning toolkits for climate resiliency and economic sustainability” seeks contributions that describe innovative approaches that can be applied by stakeholders, government entities and regulators to plan environmentally sound, sustainable, and cost-effective water resource and water management strategies to cope with present and future anticipated threats. Examples from agriculture, municipal and industrial sectors, and environmental stewards are encouraged. Papers that develop cross-cutting and integrated approaches are particularly encouraged.
Some examples of topics that submitted papers may address include:
- Novel or successful sensing techniques for measuring and monitoring water resource availability, quantity, and quality as a basis for progressing towards future sustainable management.
- Novel computer-based-simulation modeling and other analytical techniques that enhance understanding of environmental and/or economic threats as an aid to the formulation of coping and solution strategies.
- Advanced sensor and remote-sensing technologies that can be integrated with more traditional modeling approaches for sustainable water and water quality resource management.
- Innovative economic and non-economic accounting practices that can be integrated with more traditional decision-support tools to meet 21st century water, water quality, and other resource management challenges.
- Integration of new methods and approaches to address broader ecosystem services and tackle unintended consequences of water and water-quality resource management decisions and regulations.
Dr. Nigel W.T. Quinn
Dr. Vamsi Krishna Sridharan
Dr. Paul H. Hutton
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- model integration
- planning toolkits
- decision support
- climate change
- water quality
- water supply
- groundwater management
- simulation
- stakeholder
- remote sensing
- sensors
- economic sustainability
- regulatory framework
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