Hydroeconomic Modelling

GIMHE

The Hydroeconomic Modelling Group, led by professor Manuel Pulido-Velazquez (IIAMA’s director and director of the Climate Change Chair UPV-GVA), focuses its R&D&I on the economic valuation and improvement of water resources and environmental management, as well as the use of economic instruments (including price policies, water markets, crop insurance, and payments for environmental services ) to achieve a sustainable use and management of them. It also includes the economic evaluation of climate change impacts and the definition of efficient and profitable adaptation measures.

The group has developed several hydroeconomic analysis methods and tools. It has developed the SIMGAMS, OPTIGAMS and ESPAT tools that allow the development of mathematical hydroeconomic models under a simulation (the model follows pre-defined operating rules) and an optimization approach (the model looks for an optimal operation). These tools have been widely applied inside the group for economic analyses on drought and global change (climate and socioeconomic change) impacts, as well as to define strategies to cope with them. It has also developed new methodologies to define economic instruments (based on the marginal resource opportunity cost) and innovative methods to define and reduce global change combining model-based (top-down) and user-based (bottom-up) approaches.

The group has a distinct track record of collaborations with top universities and research centers concerning water resources management, water economy and climate change adaptation. Within Spain, the most important research linkages refer to the universities of Cordoba, Salamanca, Sevilla and Politécnica de Madrid, as well as the Geological Survey of Spain (Instituto Geológico y Minero, IGME). In an international level, the most relevant investigation bonds are shared with the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission, the Climate Research Centre (Germany), the universities of California – Davis (USA), Penn State (USA), Cornell (USA), Oulu (Finland), Utrecht (The Netherlands), Politecnico di Milano (Italy), Zagreb (Croatia), Laval (Canadá) and Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil); as well as the French Geological Survey (Service Géologique National, BRGM). The group has participated in the development of hydroeconomic models for water resource systems placed in Europe (Spain, France, Italy), America (California, Rio Grande) and Asia (Tigris, Eufrates).

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Research lines of GIMHE