Supporting Regional Water Sustainability Decision-Making through Integrated Modeling

Abstract

Water sustainability in cities has become a priority concern due to growing city populations and climate change. This is particularly important for cities that face severe water challenges, such as the twin border cities of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua in Mexico, and El Paso, Texas, USA. While the municipal utilities and government make immediate decisions about water sourcing, pricing, and use, both are public agencies, subject to democratic participation and decision-making. An integrated platform solution may be convenient for stakeholders that interact with multiple aspects of a complex and dynamic system, such as those involved in water sustainability. The Sustainable Water through Integrated Modeling (SWIM) platform provides comprehensible regional water models publicly on the Web that would otherwise only be accessible to domain experts. SWIM leverages future scenario analysis for citizen engagement. This paper presents the motivation, architecture, user interface, and capabilities of SWIM and how it can interoperate with Smart City ICT platforms to enable dynamic systems modeling for decision-making in a Smart City sustainable environment.