Linking social simulation and urban water modelling tools to support adaptive urban water management

The sustainable evolution of urban areas requires the assessment of the imposed pressures and the estimation of the effect of alternative responses to the urban water resources system. Such estimation entails, to a large extent, uncertainties mainly due to the complex nature of the system and its interaction with society’s subjective beliefs and (rational or otherwise) decisions. These uncertainties may be better handled by employing an adaptive approach towards integrated urban water resources management but this approach necessitates the development of more sophisticated decision support tools able to simulate both the technical and social components of the complete socio-technical system. This research focuses on the later and proposes a conceptual framework for investigating the choices of actors in response to policy interventions. The framework is implemented through a modelling “experiment” integrating an Agent Based Model (ABM), with information from the Urban Water Optioneering Tool (UWOT). The model is used for investigating the adoption of alternative domestic water technologies in an urban population under different technology subsidising policies. Agents (households) are presented with information regarding the available domestic water technology configurations through a link to the UWOT model. The agents then use this information in combination with personal (environmental behaviour, innovation acceptance type) and public (current use of technologies within the household’s social network, marketing campaigns) social parameters in order to choose their preferred configuration. The paper presents the design and evaluation of the proposed conceptual framework.