Virtual Worlds Helping Testing Water Systems
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Technology
Virtual Worlds Could Be Used to Help Test Potential New Water Infrastructure Development in the UK
Experts from the University of Exeter are pioneering a new computer platform in which water engineers can simulate how existing and prospective new water systems will cope with issues, threats and risk such as land management and flooding.
They believe that the innovative new approach towater infrastructureand security could help alleviate serious environmental impacts, such as the flooding that swept the Somerset levels earlier this year, by allowing stakeholders to work through potential threats and mitigation options in a virtual environment.
The team of Engineers from Exeter, led by Professor Dragan Savic, has received a substantial grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to develop the programme.
Professor Savic, an expert in the field of Hydroinformatics, explained: "Understanding water and its interdependencies with food, energy and the environment is vital if water is to be managed effectively and efficiently. For example, the way a switch to growing biofuels at large scale could affect our food production and how that in turn impacts on availability and quality of water are complex issues that are difficult to monitor and will vary greatly by region.
"There is, however, a lack of tools to support long-term decisions related towater managementin a wider context of the water, food and energy Nexus.
"Our project will contribute to better management of this complex system by investigating a Serious Gaming approach - called the Nexus Game - as the basis for developing more effective and timelyinfrastructurepolicy and decisions at various local, regional, national and temporal scales."
The use of Serious Games - or decision games - is becoming more popular and allows users to experience situations that are impossible in the real world for reasons of safety, cost, time or their rare occurrence.
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