A Review on Challenges in Application of Agent-based Models in Water Resources Systems

Actors involved in water resources system play a great role in sustaining it. The importance of this role signifies the necessity for taking into consideration the social-ecological aspects in modeling such systems. Agent-based models are powerful tools in modeling social-ecological systems with evolving applications in different fields, especially water resources management, in recent years. In this paper, a general introduction of the agent-based modeling approach is presented and four main challenges in modeling water resources systems with these models i.e. Designing agents’ behaviors, linking social and ecological sections, spatial representation, and calibration, verification and validation have been discussed. Considering agricultural sector as the main user of water, well credited papers with high citations in this regard were analyzed to clarify the challenges and build a reliable approach for application of these models in water resources management.