January 14, 2002—Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have developed software models they think might help not only regions and nations with critical water shortages, but also areas such as the Southwestern US where sound water management policies might avert a crisis. The computer simulations, called Dynamic Water Budget Models, allow decision-makers to quickly see how water policy options selected today would affect a society’s water resources decades into the future.
The models are based on commercially available simulation software Sandia has used to study everything from summer blackouts in California to global nuclear material inventories. The research simulations of water policy options provide immediate extrapolation and visualization of results. According to Sandia, the tool helps stakeholders with various ideas about optimal use of the particular water resource to talk sooner about realistic approaches rather than dwelling on unworkable, unsustainable options.
Each model is a complex representation of the subtle interrelationships among ground and surface water sources, recharge rates, groundwater pumping, irrigation, climate, evapotranspiration, and demographics. Future models will include other factors, such as environmental impacts, water quality, economic productivity, and an area’s social and cultural foundations.
The simulation tool has been used on the primary water supply for the Albuquerque, New Mexico, metropolitan area, to help the community with sustainability issues. The team continues to work with city and state officials to apply the tool to Albuquerque-area policy making efforts. A similar model of another water basin in rural northern New Mexico is helping farmers and developers see the possible results of various development schemes and agricultural practices.
According to the National Intelligence Council’s “Global Trends 2015” report, half the world’s population will lack access to fresh water by 2015. Scarcity of resources is a primary cause of geopolitical tension in many regions of the world, it says. They now are exploring the possibility of modeling water issues for basins shared by countries of the Former Soviet Union, for nine countries that border the Nile River, and for the US and Mexico in the El Paso/Cuidad Juarez border area.
