Expected start date:

2014/02/20

Expected end date:

2015/02/19

Institute:

UNU-FLORES

Project Status:

Closed

Project Type:

Research

Project Manager :

Stephan Hülsmann

The realization of the Water-Soil-Waste-Nexus approach requires a holistic understanding of the inter-linkage of all related environmental processes, while also taking into consideration global change and socio-economic aspects. Exploring these inter-linkages and advancing an integrated management approach requires integrated modeling tools. However, no single modeling tool is available or conceivable which would cover all processes, interactions and drivers related to water, soil and waste resources. Instead, a vast number of models are available and in use dealing with specific environmental processes related to water, soil and waste resources, at varying degree of detail, covering certain spatial and temporal scales and applying different mathematical process-describing relationships. For a specific research question or management issue to address, in particular when aiming at a nexus approach, instead of developing an appropriate modeling tool from scratch, it should more efficient and feasible to make use of available tools and modify or couple them as required. To make use of existing tools, it would be facilitated by a comprehensive overview of available models and tools, allowing an interactive search for model specifications to define which suite of models would be appropriate for specific applications. Currently, there is no such database, therefore the aim of the project is the web-based implementation of a comprehensive database of models related to the management of water, soil and waste. This project aims at developing an interactive Nexus Tools Platform for inter-model comparison of existing modeling tools. The deliverable of the project shall provide detailed model information on a subset of a larger compilation of available modeling tools. For this subset of models we try to be as comprehensive as possible concerning information on key features and parameters, as given in the table columns. When looking for particular features or processes to be considered by a model, respective columns can be selected and deselected. The platform offers interactive charts and advanced search and filter functions that allow to select the most appropriate (set of) model(s) for the specific needs and to do a gap analysis of current model capabilities.