A system for evaluating water pricing alternatives in urban areas

By I.N. Athanasiadis, A.K. Mentes, P.A. Mitkas & Y.A. Mylopoulos
In 5th Int'l Exhibition and Conference on Environmental Technology (HELECO 2005) , pp. 64 , Athens, Greece, 2005.

Abstract:
Cover image This paper presents DAWN, a decision support system that uses software agents for simulating the water demand-supply chain in urban environments. Specifically, a community of software agents is assigned to represent residential water consumers, while another agent simulates the Water Utility. The system incorporates: (a) an econometric model for estimating future water demands, and (b) a social model for simulating the influence that permeates among consumers as a result of an information and education campaign. The hybrid combination of the two models is the novelty of the approach that attempts to incorporate both the economical and the social dimension of water value. DAWN use has been demonstrated in the residential area of Thessaloniki, for exploring the responsiveness of water consumers to an information and education campaign.

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