Apsu’s participation in New approaches for shared resource systems under conflict webnar

FutureDAMS (‘Future Design and Assessment of Water-Energy-Food-Environment Mega Systems’) is a 4-year Global Challenge Research Fund project aiming to improve the planning and governance of water and its interlinked resource systems to increase resilience and sustainability. FutureDAMS case-studies include East Africa, Ghana, Myanmar and the Middle East and involve partnerships with local relevant organisations, for example the East Africa case-study is in partnership with the Nile Basin Initiative and the East African Power Pool.

FutureDAMS aims to develop and enable new forms of analysis for the assessment of interventions, such as new infrastructure or management policies, in water-energy-food-environment (WEFE) systems and demonstrate their value by applying them with interdisciplinary teams and stakeholders. Core project tools include system-scale simulation of multi-region multi-sector resource systems, multi-criteria design, and accessible interactive web tools. Capability and capacity building is central to the project and is achieved through co-production of case-study models, online training materials, and events.

The Tigris Euphrates river basin case-study currently involves a group of UK-based researchers led by the University of Manchester Water Resources Group and Methods for Irrigation and Agriculture (MIRRA), a water and food management NGO in Jordan. The group is developing a river basin management simulation model of the Tigris Euphrates using the open-source ‘Python water resources’ (Pywr) model (see image below). Pywr can simulate development and water sharing scenarios between riparian countries and optimise inter-sectoral and inter-region benefits according to multiple environmental and socioeconomic criteria. The group has recently began building a power system model of the region as well, to examine the adoption of renewable energy, trading arrangements and more generally to explore water-energy interconnections. The models can be hosted and run online using new technologies, with the aims of reducing barriers to advanced and collaborative WEFE systems analysis.

The Tigris Euphrates case-study group aims to organise two training events in 2021 to introduce the regional resource modelling tool and is keen to engage with regional actors and existing partnerships to explore future collaboration opportunities.