Water resources management sustainability: Review of the simulation and optimization approaches

Abstract

Sustainable development has become a big issue in almost all research fields. In water resources system management, if the system is able to satisfy the changing water demand without any system shortage, then sustainability is achieved. In fact, water resources system management is operated under complete uncertainty, with no real possibility to look into the future to predict natural condition, policy, or demand. Due to the increasing problem of scarce water resources, this encourages researchers and experts to manage water resources much more effectively, ensuring all important challenges are resolve and to maintain water resources to guarantee to meet the demand under any condition. This paper discusses the evolution of sustainable development and reviews issues regarding concept, definition, and approach to sustainable development for both research and its application to water resources system management, especially pertaining to water demand fulfillment. The paper describes state of the art simulation and optimization techniques in water resources system management, reviews the growth of simulation and optimization techniques in an effort to establish a sustainable system, frames the progress of such techniques applied to water resources system, and identifies the needs for further development to face the future challenges. This study reviews published articles from 2000 to 2017 in more than 50 peer-reviewed journals, regarding the application of simulation and optimization techniques in water resources system management in relation to sustainable water demand fulfillment by system management. The study showed that water management requires both researchers and practitioners to optimize the limited water availability in fulfillment of the increasing demand for water. Simulation and optimization are promising solutions, and as they are powered by the advancement of computer technology, they have become central to the evolution of these techniques in their application to the sustainable development of water resources system.