Water Resources Program

Selected Projects

• Integrating Water Supply Planning and Ecological Flow Requirements: We are working on an innovative study, “Integrating Water Supply Planning and Ecological Flow Requirements”, with the Nature Conservancy and Tufts University. This study will use WEAP as a framework to study how reservoir release policies may be improved, without sacrificing demand reliability, to consider the natural flow pattern variability needed for optimal ecosystem health, a concept largely ignored in reservoir operation policies to date.
  
• Quantifying Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources : In collaboration with NHI and NCAR, and the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), we are exploring the use of WEAP to quantify climate-change driven impacts to water resource allocation in the Sacramento River Basin in Northern California. This work is one component of an EPA funded project Climate Change Information to Affect Decision Outcomes in the San Francisco Bay Watershed and may result in WEAP results being featured in California's Water Plan Update for 2010, an official planning document for the state.  
  
• Impacts of Small Reservoirs on Livelihoods and Food Security: This project involves work in the Sao Francisco River Basin (Brazil), the Volta River Basin (Ghana), and the Limpopo River Basin (Southern Africa) on planning and evaluation of small, multi-purpose reservoirs for the improvement of smallholder livelihoods and food security. Tens of thousands of rural communities in Africa and Latin America rely upon water from small multi-purpose reservoirs for their households, livestock, and irrigation schemes. In collaboration with local and regional stakeholders, we are in the process of developing tools for small reservoir analysis and design, improving methods for institutional, financial, and economic analysis, and building confidence in a science-based approach to planning reservoir systems. Building upon this foundation, decision-makers at the basin and national scale, together with local communities, will collaborate to ensure the long-term sustainability of local water supplies and adequate downstream flows. Well-sited, multi-purpose reservoirs making water available to smallholders are vital, allowing smallholders to realize the ultimate goals of increasing the production of food, reducing poverty, ensuring human health, and improving rural livelihoods. See www.smallreservoirs.org for more information. Funding from Challenge Program for Water and Food.
  

• Small Multi-purpose Reservoir Ensemble Planning: We are working to support the Small Multi-purpose Reservoir Ensemble Planning research team, which is analyzing the value of an integrated systems-based approach for managing the Volta, Limpopo and Sao Francisco river basins, which are a substantial resource for people living in arid regions with highly variable rainfall. 

• Impacts of Hormonally Active Wastewater Pollutants in Groundwater: We contributed to an initial phase of the study Assessing Impacts of Hormonally Active Wastewater Pollutants Introduced to Groundwater via On-site Sewage Disposal - an area of risk assessment critically lacking in data. 

• Regional Solutions to Developing Water Supplies: To aid drinking water utilities in evaluating strategies for regionalization, this project seeks to develop a decision support system comprising (1) a set of matrices that identifies the key aspects of regionalization for utilities across a range of circumstances, and (2) a guidance document that will help utilities characterize the aspects of their utility, their community, and their circumstances related to regionalization to identify which of several matrices included in the decision analysis tool best describes their situation and to develop a tailored approach to consolidation and predict the success of various approaches to meeting utility and community needs. Funding from the American Water Works Association Research Foundation (AwwaRF). 2004-2006
   
• Reoperation of Hydraulic Infrastructure to Restore Aquatic Ecosystems: This project will identify the restoration potential of critical ecosystems by creating an inventory of the most promising opportunities and an assessment of what would be required to achieve beneficial re-operation. This "opportunities list" will provide roadmaps for relevant national governments and international development assistance agencies to implement the most promising of these restoration projects, which will prioritize ecosystems with a high dependence for local livelihoods. Funding from MacArthur Foundation. 2004-2005
   
• Climate Change Information To Affect Decision Outcomes In The San Francisco Bay Watershed: This project will develop a comprehensive inventory of environmental decisions related to water quality and quantity and/or aquatic species and ecosystem heath that are sensitive to climate change in this watershed. From this inventory, four case studies will be selected to introduce related climate research in an attempt to improve decision-making processes. We will seek input from participants in defining how climate change information could be used to set and attain targeted outcomes in their particular processes. We would solicit input on how DSS tools such as WEAP could be used or improved to attain desired outcomes. From the suggestions of this stakeholder dialogue, the study team will implement the recommendations into the project tools (e.g. reconfiguration of model schematic, refinement of model to reflect important components, additional climate change scenarios). The refined project tools would then be used to carry-out the analysis. As we engage the analytical process of each case study, we envision on ongoing dialogue between the study team and the decision making personnel of each case study. Funding from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2004-2006
   
• Impacts of Septic System Leachate on Drinking Water Resources on Cape Cod, Massachusetts: Few data exist that describe the extent of impact to groundwater quality from the introduction of pharmaceutical and hormonally-active compounds present in wastewater effluent. Much of the scientific literature that has become available focuses on the introduction of these contaminant classes into surface water bodies from wastewater treatment plants; these studies have been motivated by the need to determine at what levels these compounds may exist in rivers and lakes, and if these levels are harmful to the ecologic communities that reside in these water bodies. Globally, though, many shallow groundwater systems are also impacted by wastewater effluent via on-site sewage disposal systems that utilize leach field technologies. Besides typically serving as drinking water supplies, many of these shallow aquifers are also hydraulically connected to rivers and other surface water bodies - the quality of water derived from these aquifers is therefore intimately linked to both human and ecologic health. We are involved in a hydrogeologic study to determine the persistence and fate of these classes of compounds, using as a case study the shallow aquifer that is the sole-source of drinking water to the population (~250,000) of Cape Cod, MA, USA. Over 90% of wastewater disposal on Cape Cod occurs via septic systems that introduce wastewater into this aquifer - it is estimated that the contribution of this "recycled" wastewater to public drinking water pumped from the aquifer is as high as 25%. The data obtained from this study will not only inform ongoing decision-making regarding the future of wastewater disposal on Cape Cod and its impact on water quality there, but also help to guide discussion on this issue in other locales where shallow aquifer systems are affected by on-site sewage disposal. Funding from Silent Spring Institute. 2004-2005
   
• Sustainable Development, Global Change and Ecosystems: The project 'RIVERTWIN' aims in adjusting, testing and implementing an integrated regional model for the strategic planning of water resources management in twinned river basins under contrasting ecological, social and economic conditions. The regional model will take into account the impacts of demographic trends, economic and technological development, the effects of global climate and land use changes on the availability and quality of water bodies in humid temperate, subhumid tropical as well as semiarid regions. The existing integration framework will be first tested in a European river basin (Neckar basin, Germany) with high data availability and data density. The transferability of the model to other regions with different economic level, ecological standards and with low data availability will be jointly tested by the project team and river basin organizations in two river basins in West Africa (Oueme, Benin) and Uzbekistan (Chirchik, Uzbekistan). Here, the problem of adequate human resources and the uncertainties of input data for the implementation of computer based decision support tools will be addressed. 2004-2007
   
• Water Planning in the Republic of Korea: WEAP is being adopted as a tool to aid the Republic of Korea in its long-term water planning. This project will enhance WEAP and train the Korean planners in its use. Enhancements include translation of the software into Korean, addition of a 5-day time step, surface water quality modeling, benefit-cost analysis, and improved reporting and mapping. Funding from Korean Institute of Construction Technology. 2003-2007
   
• Integrated Water Resources Management for Lake Naivasha, Kenya: The study focused on developing, for the first time in the Lake Naivasha Basin, an integrated water resource management model to assess the situation in the whole catchment, identify where problems and weaknesses exist and seek their improvement. The main problem was determined not to be a shortage of water, but rather the management of the lake. It was recommended that a basin-wide legally mandated body (involving all levels) be established to oversee water use. Other strategies included capacity building of stakeholders on water natural resources management policies, water rights and enforcement of laws. 2003-2004
   
• Decision Support System for Sustainable Water Supply Planning: This research focuses on developing a decision support system (DSS) for three urban water utilities in the U.S. (Austin, Texas, Portland, Oregon, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) to facilitate long-term management of water supplies in balance with water demands, using a transparent set of tools that explicitly include analyses of the full range of issues and uncertainties that may be faced by utilities in the coming decades. WEAP is a central component of this DSS, providing a framework that is accessible to strategic planners, stakeholders and decision-makers. Two elements of this research objective distinguish this effort from the water supply planning efforts that drinking water utilities have pursued for decades: the long planning horizon and the focus on sustainability. The critical set of activities pursued by the research team in developing the Water Balance Tool centered around substantial and sustained interactions with drinking water utility planners in three test sites (Austin, Texas; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Portland, Oregon) that were structured specifically to identify the features that needed to be added to WEAP in order to create a broadly useful DSS. In addition, these interactions provided the research team with a forum to test the system's responsiveness to actual on-the-ground, long-range water supply planning challenges facing utility planners at each of the three test site locations. Funded by the American Water Works Association Research Foundation (AwwaRF). 2002-2005
  
• Effects of Climate Change on Ecosystem Services in California: This project incorporates bio-physical and socio-economic elements of the San Francisco Bay into WEAP to evaluate trade-offs among ecosystem services in the watershed considering possible future climatic, population and land use scenarios. This is one of three regional efforts designed to assess the potential impacts of climate change on the goods and services provided by aquatic ecosystems in important hydrologic systems (the others are in the Chesapeake Bay and San Pedro River watersheds in the US). Aquatic ecosystem services may be defined as the "conditions and processes through which natural ecosystems, and the species that are part of them, sustain and fulfill human life" (Daily et al 1997), and can be categorized as either hydrologic, biogeochemical or biological in origin. Each category includes services vital to the health of human societies and economies. The EPA hopes that these studies will generate tools useful in understanding how services provided by aquatic ecosystems in the United States may change in the face of ongoing climatic changes. Funding from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2001-2005
  
• Adaptation to Changing Environments: Water, Climate, Food, and Nature: As part of the ADAPT project, WEAP was used to develop and evaluate adaptation strategies in the Sacramento Basin (California, USA) and in the Volta Basin (primarily in Burkina Faso and Ghana) to alleviate negative impacts of climate change and variability. A variety of adaptation strategies were analyzed with WEAP to address the tradeoffs between water allocations that prioritize the environment and food security under changing climate and land-use conditions. 2002-2003
  
• Water and Livelihoods in Sri Lanka: The aim of the research is to assess the capability of linking the livelihoods framework and WEAP. If the impact of changes in water availability are more formalized in terms of the livelihood framework, then more consistent assessments could be effected and the linkage between WEAP as a resource assessment and management tool and SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS as end-user impacts or condition framework could be carried out in a more integrated way and would allow livelihood impacts to be determined as part of the scenario development process.
  
• Beijing - Hebei Eco-Region program: The project is designed to provide the basis for achieving co-operation on water-related issues, involving upstream stakeholders in 14 Counties of Hebei Province and downstream stakeholders in 6 counties in Beijing. WEAP is being used to develop scenarios to support this effort. 2001-2005
  
• Israeli/Palestinian Dialogue: SEI-Boston assists water experts from the Israeli and Palestinian sides in the use of WEAP to represent alternative water development and allocation scenarios. The project includes a conference in which government, academic and stakeholder representatives will meet to discuss the issues and, using WEAP, jointly explore alternative assumptions and approaches. It is hoped that the project could provide an institutional platform for continuing dialogue and conflict resolution in the area. Funding from IDRC, Canada. 1999-2000
  
• Water, Climate and Agriculture: SEI-Boston worked with a team to model the links between climate change scenarios, hydrological responses, and agricultural productivity. WEAP was used to study existing and future water availability for agriculture in multiple river basins throughout the world. Funded by Columbia University and private agricultural research consortium. 1997-1999
  
• Capacity Building in India and Nepal:  SEI-Boston partnered with four water development NGOs from India and Nepal on a water supply and conservation project. The organizations reflect a diverse set of water planning challenges in South Asia. WEAP was introduced in each area as a mechanism for structured and integrated assessment. Ten water professionals from the organizations then participated in a joint training workshop where they gained proficiency in the use of WEAP, developed a network configuration for their regions and compiled relevant data. The applications in river basin assessment and problem solving continue with occasional SEI technical support. Funding from IDRC. 1999
  
• World Water Vision:  The World Water Council has launched this two-year project to continue the work of the SEI/UN Comprehensive Freshwater Assessment. SEI-Boston was active in shaping the project and developed global water visions and scenarios. The scenarios provided a framework for synthesizing sectoral studies and presenting results to the general public and policy community. Funded by SIDA. 1998-2000
  
• Global Environment Outlook:  SEI-Boston assisted the United Nations Environment Programme in the preparation of the Monitoring and Assessment Programme with the preparation of the biennial Global Environment Outlook report. In addition to inputs stemming from integrated scenario work, SEI advises on the policy and technical aspects of the fresh water sections of the report. Funding from SIDA and UNEP. 1997-1999
  
• Water Planning for the State of California: Currently, all water resources within the state and any available imported water are utilized to their fullest extent by a large number of stakeholders. SEI-Boston was tasked by a coalition of Federal and State agencies and organizations to enhance and apply WEAP to assist California to achieve equitable and sustainable water allocation, and to bring an integrated approach to stakeholder dialogue. Funded by US Department of Interior, US Fish & Wildlife Service and various state agencies. 1997-1998
  
• Beijing Environmental Master Planning:  SEI-Boston developed the Beijing Environmental Master Plan Application System (BEMPAS) for the Beijing Municipal Environmental Planning Bureau. WEAP along with SEI-Boston's energy and solid waste planning models, were used as the core planning model for BEMPAS. Main tasks included consultation on Beijing's environmental planning needs, building an integrated assessment tool, and training. Funded by the World Bank. 1993-1997
  
• Comprehensive Assessment of Freshwater Resources of the World:  SEI-Boston prepared a document entitled Water Futures: Assessment of Long-range Patterns and Problems for the Comprehensive Assessment. After the Comprehensive Assessment was initiated by the United Nations, a Steering Committee was established with representatives from SEI and relevant United Nations Organizations, the World Bank, and others. SEI-Boston developed alternative water futures to the year 2025 based on multi-sectoral scenarios. The scenarios reflect the complex variables that directly or indirectly influence future water conditions. Indices reflecting water stress and vulnerability were applied on regional and national levels to monitor evolving water problems. A vision for a sustainable water future was introduced. Funded by Sweden. 1996-1997
  
• Rapid Integrated River Basin Assessment: A Proposed Methodology: In recognition of the need for integrated assessments at the river basin scale, the United Nations Environmental Programme commissioned SEI-Boston to propose a harmonized methodology for a rapid integrated river basin assessment (RIRBA). Existing assessment methodologies were first reviewed and similarities and complementary elements were identified. The proposed method incorporated a two-phase multi-stakeholder approach: (1) identification of major problems and opportunities within the basin and (2) development of strategies for sustainable development taking into account the competing uses and environmental requirements within the basin. Funded by UNEP. 1996
  
• Model Building for the Hydrologic Engineering Center:  The Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC) of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contracted SEI-Boston for enhancements to WEAP for use in the U.S. An international leader in water modeling, the HEC has developed numerous water resources models since the 1960s, known as the HEC model series. The HEC models have been used throughout the world. WEAP was selected for its unique design philosophy stressing integration, flexibility, and the environment. HEC has used WEAP in water resources planning cases in the United States. Funded by HEC. 1995
  
• Supply Augmentation in Texas: WEAP was used in a firm yield analysis Texas, which included an assessment of water supply augmentation through an inter-basin transfer. A WEAP based analysis determined how the existing and proposed supply options could be used together to maximize the system firm yield. By prioritizing the supply withdrawals between the two sources, the study predicted a ten percent increase in combined firm yield compared to original estimates which had simply added the two individual firm yields. As a result of this preliminary analysis, the region has moved forward to the design stage. Funded by regional agencies. 1995
  
• Integrated Assessment of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin:  The entire Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin was modeled in WEAP. The states of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia rely on the surface water and groundwater from the entire basin and conflicts are starting to emerge between upstream and downstream users. After training in WEAP, the team analyzed water use and allocation scenarios among the states to establish sustainable and equitable allocation of the regions water resources. Funded by HEC and state agencies. 1991-1997
  
• Water and Environment in the Rio San Juan:  WEAP was used in an integrated water resources assessment of the Rio San Juan basin in Mexico, including the industrial center of Monterey. The study included the development of a supply and demand balance for the watershed, and the identification of alternative water development strategies and their environmental implications. The analysis also estimated the true cost of water in the region, reflecting opportunity costs, marginal costs, and scarcity costs. Funded by local agencies. 1993-1994  
• Strategies for Water Use in the Aral Sea Region:  SEI-Boston joined the Russian Institute of Geography in a major research project in the Aral Sea region. The Aral is shrinking, a result of intensive withdrawals from its two feed rivers, primarily for agricultural development. Regional impacts include severe ecological degradation and deterioration of public health. The WEAP system was first developed in this project and applied to the two major rivers feeding the Aral. Scenarios of water demand and supply provided a framework for evaluating future conditions and policies for amelioration. This was the first comprehensive analysis of water accounts for the Aral region. Funded by SEI and the Global Infrastructure Fund of Japan. 1990-1992