A Novel Approach to Solving Multi-Objective Groundwater Problems with Uncertain Parameters

• Published in: The open hydrology journal Vol. 4; no. 1; pp. 19 - 25
• Main Author: Ndambuki, J M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 13.04.2011
• Subjects: Demand; Focusing; Groundwater; Marketing; Monte Carlo methods; Robustness; Wells
• ISSN: 1874-3781; 1874-3781
• DOI: 10.2174/1874378101105010019

As the world population continues to increase, demand for the provision of larger amounts of water to carter for the increased population increases too. Thus, experts in the water resources arena are struggling to meet this ever-increasing demand. Moreover, more attention is focusing on groundwater as surface water quality deteriorates. This may lead to conflict unless measures that promote deliberate efficient and sustainable exploitation are embraced. In this paper, we discuss a novel approach to managing groundwater within a multi-objective framework when the input parameters are uncertain. The novelty of the tool is explicitly demonstrated by applying it to an hypothetical example. Results show that the tool is versatile and can prescribe solutions which guarantee desired levels of robustness. While Monte Carlo approach prescribes the use of only 7 wells, the current approach prescribes the use of more wells (up to 16 wells) for a more robust solution. This implies that Monte Carlo approach leads to optimistic solutions which are prone to changes in response to perturbations in input parameters.