Abstract
The world is currently facing extremely high water scarcity, due to the limitation of available water resources, droughts, and increasing water demand follows population growth and changing consumption patterns. In such circumstances, it is necessary to determine the optimal and sustainable operational policies of this vital source. In addition, considering the role of simulation and optimization approaches as one of the management tools, the existence of a comprehensive, integrated, and dynamic notify system is necessary regarding the type and combination of the costs. This tool helps experts and users to compare different scenarios in specific time periods, and to be able to adopt measures to manage water consumption. In this regard, system dynamics approach is one of powerful management and simulation tool in solving, supporting, and decision-making complex issues. This approach refers to the computer simulation method for simulating a dynamic and complex system with feedback process inclusion and make system users a better understanding of the dynamic behavior of systems during time. This method has been successfully applied in a wide variety of business and socio-economic fields. Furthermore, in recent years, this method has been used in water resources research, such as flood management, operation of reservoirs, management of catchment basin, planning management, and analyzing the decision-making policies of water resources management, and the results have been very significant. Considering the importance of this issue and the benefits of using System Dynamics analysis approaches in solving problems, in addition to introducing this method, examples of different studies conducted in the simulation of water systems using system dynamics analysis technique are presented, in this chapter.
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The authors thank Iran’s National Science Foundation (INSF) for the support of this research.
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Bavandpour, A.Y., Nozari, H., Ahmad, S. (2021). System Dynamics Approach for Water Resources Systems Analysis. In: Bozorg-Haddad, O. (eds) Essential Tools for Water Resources Analysis, Planning, and Management. Springer Water. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4295-8_7
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