Historical Calibration of a Water Account System

Abstract

Models used for future based scenarios should be calibrated with historical water supply and use data. Historical water records in Australia are discontinuous, incomplete, and often incongruently disaggregated. We present a systematic method to produce a coherent reconstruction of the historical provision and consumption of water in catchments of the State of Victoria. This is demonstrated using water account system (WAS): an accounting and simulation tool that tracks the stocks and flows of physical quantities relating to the water system. The WAS is part of, and informed by, an integrated framework of stocks and flows calculators for simulating long-term interactions between other sectors of the physical economy. Both the WAS and related frameworks consider a wide scope of inputs regarding population, land use, energy, and water. The physical history of the water sector is reconstructed by integrating water data with these information sources using a data modeling process that resolves conflicts and deduces missing information. The WAS outputs demonstrate the water and energy implications of the treatment, delivery, and end use of water cognizant of historical records.