WHAT-IF Tool
Organization
Type(s) of Tool
Sector(s)
Lifecycle Phase(s)
Open Source
Language Availability
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Date of Development
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Description
The Water-Hydropower-Agriculture Tool for Investments and Financing (WHAT-IF) tool is a computer-based model developed for economic assessment of water infrastructure (e.g. reservoirs, irrigation, water supply, energy production) within the water-energy-food nexus. The key objective of the tool is to maximize economic welfare considering nexus’ trade-offs, such as crop and power markets and trade, as well as exogenous climate change and socio-economic drivers. Therewith, the tool enables to solve synergies and tradeoffs between those sectors and provides the user with nexus-optimized water infrastructure solutions based on the comparison of different scenarios.
Tool Outcome
The WHAT-IF tool allows users to economically optimize water infrastructures under consideration of the nexus with the power market and agricultural production as well as climate change and socio-economic drivers. Modelling of different scenarios is possible.
Sustainability Criteria
The tool considers several drivers that influence water use, such as (non-exclusive list):
– Water demand
– Water technologies
– Operational constraints
– Environmental policies
– Climate change
– Land use
– Land resources
– Crop demand
– Potential yields
– World crop market prices
– Energy demand
– Fuel prices
– Carbon policy
– Energy technologies