A review on water simulation models for the WEF Nexus: development perspective

Abstract

The primary impediment to adopting the Water, Energy, and Food (WEF) Nexus is a lack of a comprehensive and user-friendly simulation model. According to our search on Google Scholar and the Scopus databank, WEF Nexus studies can be divided into three broad categories: (1) studies about the nexus concept, (2) studies related to nexus modeling and software development, and (3) case studies. Given that the present study's objective is to review various solutions for WEF Nexus modeling and also to prepare a checklist of available models to find a better model for nexus simulation, we excluded papers and studies which were related to the nexus concept. After that, we split up other papers that talked about nexus and software development into (1) integrated and (2) compiled approaches. Then, it was attempted to identify the shortcomings in each approach. It was shown that the existing integrated WEF Nexus models (such as MUSIASEM, NexSym, CLEW, and ANEMI) had some significant drawbacks compared to compiled alternatives. Several of the major shortcomings of existing integrated models include the following: (1) They did not cover all spatial scales; (2) they included only a limited number of interactions across WEF subsystems; and (3) some of these models were unavailable. Therefore, as a general result of the current study, it was shown that compiled approach is generally preferable compared to available integrated models. In this regard, we tried to find the best water simulation models to implement in the nexus concept. We searched for papers about water simulation models and defined water subsystem requirements in the nexus concept. So, we evaluated each water simulation model based on its ability to cover water subsystem requirements. This work illustrates the capability of a suitable water simulation model to be utilized in the nexus concept and provides a holistic checklist to choose the preferred water simulation model based on the needs of each issue.

Keywords: Compiled simulation; Integrated simulation; Sustainable development; Water simulation model; Water-Food-Energy Nexus.