Basin futures: Supporting water planning in data poor basins

Abstract

Water resources are under growing pressures globally. Sustainable water management requires good understanding of water resources, e.g. where water is stored and used, and how future developments may impact on water availability. Developing this understanding requires investment in data, models, and experts, often over multi-year timeframes. In the context of developing countries, in particular those with institutional gaps in the water sector, these challenges are difficult to overcome. In this paper we discuss Basin Futures, a response to four issues faced by institutions and water policy makers in developing countries: data availability, capability, capacity and costs. In Basin Futures, we aim to accelerate the progression toward detailed basin planning by offering access to data sets and models that facilitate the initial stages of basin planning. Basin Futures is a web based modelling platform that brings together global and local datasets to support water planning in developing countries. The system is designed to leverage investment in existing data (global and local), and then use this to empower decision-makers to understand the opportunities and constraints in managing their water resources. Basin Futures provides an enabling environment for planning, cooperation and participation in water management. It allows defensible decisions to be made at a level that is supported by available data. With the increasing availability and range of global data, e.g. from satellites, and technologies such as cloud computing, there is an opportunity to perform faster water assessments as an early stage of a large water assessment cycle. We have a developed a cloud-based approach that aims to give users a quicker route to an initial understanding of water resources in basins. Basin Futures integrates a range of global datasets, include HydroSHEDS, global precipitation, and river discharge observations, with models built for use in a cloud environment. Together with a web-based application, this allows users to make an initial estimate of current water resources. Core to the value of Basin Futures is that it provides user-customisable scenarios that allow dynamic exploration of future scenarios, for example, construction of new storages, changes to irrigation practices, population growth, and climate change scenarios. Users are then able to visualise impacts on water-related security indices. The model engine is a reach-based model - rather than a node-link model - where the demands are only associated with local (reach) storages and there is no support for upstream ordering of water or for exploring ground and surface water interactions. This is a deliberate choice to create a system that runs fast enough in web time and provides the user with an initial understanding of the water resources in unregulated systems. This streamlined approach to water resource assessments gives users a powerful starting point for positioning future investments in new knowledge and planning activities. The outputs will also guide where more definitive answers, and data, will be required by the appropriate use of more powerful software. This paper details the driving requirements for the Basin Futures, the underling model, and the implementation using modern web technologies.