A Literature Review on System Dynamics Modeling for Sustainable Management of Water Supply and Demand

Water supply and demand management (WSDM) is only effective when tackled with holistic system understanding considering social, economic, hydrological, and economic sub-systems. System Dynamics Model (SDM), also known as System Dynamics (SD), which is a Systems Thinking Approach (STA), is actively used for this purpose by water resource analysts. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the application of SDM to water supply and demand management, with a focus on groundwater (GW) sustainability. Further, the quantitative models used in conjunction with SDM are explored. Over sixty nine papers spanning over the last 20 years were analyzed. The quantitative models complemented the SDM includes Agent-Based Modeling (ABM), Bayesian Networking (BN), Analytical Hierarchy Approach (AHP), simulation-optimization M-Objective Optimization (MOO) and solved using Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle-Swarm-Optimization (PSO) and Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II). Although Climate change significantly affects water management strategies, this study revealed that only 51% of the reviewed articles considered it, while the problem conceptualization using the Causal-Loop-Diagram (CLD) is performed by only 58% of the studies. Moreover, 70% of the reviewed articles used the Stock-Flow-Diagram (SFD) to perform the quantitative system analysis. Stakeholder engagement plays a significant role in understanding the consumers’ core issues and divergent views and needs but is incorporated by only 36% of the studies. The key findings for sustainable development in terms of water resource management included, per capita water reduction, water conservation through public awareness campaigns, usage of treated wastewater, adoption of efficient irrigation practices including drip irrigation, cultivation of low33 water consuming crops in water-stressed regions, and regulations to control groundwater over34 exploitation. In future work, developing a hybrid SDM-Optimization framework is suggested to simulate and optimize the dynamic socio-economic interactions and help policymakers devise strategic water planning and management policies that ensure sustainable development.