An Agent-Based Modeling Approach to Evaluate the Impact of Conservation Practices on Water Resources Sustainability

The availability of water resources in many urbanizing areas is the emergent property of the adaptive interactions among consumers, policy, and the hydrologic cycle. As water availability becomes more stressed, public officials often implement restrictions on water use, such as bans on outdoor watering. Consumers are influenced by policy and the choices of other consumers to select water conservation technologies and practices, which aggregate as the demand on available water resources. Policy and behavior choices impact the availability of water for future use as reservoirs are depleted or filled. This research posits urban water supply as a Complex Adaptive System (CAS) by coupling a consumer end use model and a water supply model within an agent-based modeling (ABM) framework. Public officials are simulated as agents to choose water pricing structures, and consumers are simulated as agents, influenced by water prices and the choices of other consumers, to select water conservation technologies and behaviors, and correspondingly update their individual end use models. A water supply reservoir is simulated to receive rainfall from the contributing watershed and supply the demands of consumer agents. The ABM framework is applied to an illustrative urban case study. A set of water pricing structures are developed to represent risky and risk-averse policies and are simulated for a long-term precipitation record to evaluate the sustainability of water conservation practices.