Abstract
Water stress will intensify as rapidly growing urban areas place heavy pressure on the available water resources. The study adopts system dynamic (SD) modelling—a decision aid tool in assessing the vulnerability of water resources by exhibiting interrelationships between the variables in the system. This model is applied in Chennai City, India, which is continuously affected by water stress issues. The purpose of this paper is to (i) examine the applicability of the SD model for vulnerability assessment by developing water security, water supply, and sewerage indices involving groundwater, seawater, and surface water systems; (ii) analyse the current and future behaviour of the developed indices to understand the vulnerability of water systems; and (iii) evolve plausible scenarios under alternative conditions to decide upon the policy interventions and phase-wise recommendation. The validation results enhance the model’s reliability. The model highlights the necessity of reinforcing water infrastructure system to comply with the city’s future water demand. The simulation runs demonstrated that improving water availability and water use efficiency is crucial in enhancing water security. Phase-wise projection of the selected policy scenario exhibited the effectiveness of the thrust parameters in enhancing the indices. This model can also be applied to any developing city with a necessary alteration.
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Data Availability
The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are available from Census of India, Tamil Nadu State Disaster Management Authority, Chennai Smart City Limited, and Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board, on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their gratitude to all of the departments of the Chennai City Corporation for their valuable assistance in data collection.
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Kaaviya Rajarethinam: Conceptualisation, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, investigation, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, visualisation
Devadas Varuvel: Supervision and proofreading
Virupaxi Bagodi: Supervision and proofreading
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Rajarethinam, K., Varuvel, D. & Bagodi, V. System dynamic modelling for assessing the vulnerability of water resources: a case of Chennai City, Tamil Nadu, India. Arab J Geosci 14, 2008 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-021-08258-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-021-08258-x