Evaluation of water security in Jordan using a multi-agent hydroeconomic model
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation focuses on the development of a multi-agent, hydroeconomic model for water policy evaluation in Jordan. Jordan ranks among the most water-scarce countries in the world, a situation recently exacerbated due to an influx of refugees escaping the civil war in neighboring Syria. The modular, multi-agent model is used to evaluate interventions for enhancing Jordan's water security, integrating biophysical modules that simulate natural and engineered phenomena with human modules that represent behavior at multiple levels of decision making. The hydrologic modules are developed using spatially-distributed groundwater and surface water models, which are translated into compact simulators for efficient integration into the multi-agent model. For the human modules, the multi-agent approach explicitly accounts for human agency at multiple levels of decision making, with agents representing riparian, management, supplier, and water user groups. Human agents are implemented as autonomous entities in the model that make decisions in relation to one another and in response to hydrologic and socioeconomic conditions. The integrated model is programmed in Python using Pynsim, a generalizable, open-source object-oriented software framework for modeling network-based water resource systems. The model is run for a historical period (2006-2014) and for a future period (present-2050). For the historical runs, the model performance is validated against historical data for several observations that reflect the interacting dynamics of both the hydrologic and human components of the system. In addition, model sensitivity analysis is conducted revealing the hydrologic and human aspects of the system that most strongly influence water security outcomes, providing insight into coupled human-water system dynamics as well as priority areas of focus for continued model improvement. A historical counterfactual scenario is also constructed to isolate and identify the impacts of the recent Syrian civil war and refugee crisis on Jordan's water system. For the future period, model narratives are constructed to evaluate potential supply, demand, and institutional interventions over a wide range of plausible climate and socioeconomic scenarios.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2017 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Yoon, James |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Earth System Science. |
| Primary advisor | Gorelick, Steven |
| Thesis advisor | Gorelick, Steven |
| Thesis advisor | Freyberg, David L |
| Thesis advisor | Lobell, David |
| Advisor | Freyberg, David L |
| Advisor | Lobell, David |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Jim Yoon. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Earth System Science. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2017. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2017 by James Jungro Yoon
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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