Historical Calibration of a Water Account System
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 137, Issue 1
Abstract
Models used for future based scenarios should be calibrated with historical water supply and use data. Historical water records in Australia are discontinuous, incomplete, and often incongruently disaggregated. We present a systematic method to produce a coherent reconstruction of the historical provision and consumption of water in catchments of the State of Victoria. This is demonstrated using water account system (WAS): an accounting and simulation tool that tracks the stocks and flows of physical quantities relating to the water system. The WAS is part of, and informed by, an integrated framework of stocks and flows calculators for simulating long-term interactions between other sectors of the physical economy. Both the WAS and related frameworks consider a wide scope of inputs regarding population, land use, energy, and water. The physical history of the water sector is reconstructed by integrating water data with these information sources using a data modeling process that resolves conflicts and deduces missing information. The WAS outputs demonstrate the water and energy implications of the treatment, delivery, and end use of water cognizant of historical records.
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Acknowledgments
This work inherits much from the data, methods, and results of the Australian Stocks and Flows Framework (ASFF) and we are grateful to the creators of ASFF for their continuing support. In particular, we would like to recognize the technical guidance of whatIf? technologies who are the originators of the software we used. This paper has benefited greatly from the informed and detailed comments by Freeman Cook (CSIRO) and Joe Lane (Queensland Water Commission). This research was supported through CSIRO’s Water for a Healthy Country Flagship and The State of Victoria Department of Sustainability and Environment.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 137 • Issue 1 • January 2011
Pages: 41 - 50
Copyright
© 2011 ASCE.
History
Received: Mar 13, 2009
Accepted: Apr 6, 2010
Published online: May 1, 2010
Published in print: Jan 2011
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