Award Date

8-1-2011

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Water Resource Management

First Committee Member

Pushkin Kachroo

Second Committee Member

Sajjad Ahmad

Third Committee Member

Scott Nowicki

Fourth Committee Member

Robert Futrell

Number of Pages

134

Abstract

Rural villages and underdeveloped communities represent the largest group challenged by poor water supply and sanitation with inequalities in resources to adequately implement potential solutions and even more with their high risk level of financing, funding is particularly challenging for water projects. Innovative financing alone will not eliminate the burdens of rural villages and underdeveloped communities. The purpose of this thesis is to address the lack of sustainable water financing of water projects in rural areas using a novel framework of a mathematical model based on "system dynamics" using optimal feedback control theory to maximize the performance of a water project. This is achieved by using feedback loops that allow for a real-time adjustment of the input parameters. The case model presented considers a renewable water supply system for a rural village where the user's willingness to pay along with demand drive the performance indicators to simulate how decision makers can make real-time decisions on how to manage financing instruments and long-term debt. The results of the study are the first step to the mathematical framework of optimal control of cash flows. Future research is aimed at applying optimal control using ordinary differential equations and stochastic differential equations which is presented in theoretical form.

Keywords

Non-governmental organizations; NGOs; Optimal control theory; Sparsely populated areas; Sustainability; System dynamics; Water financing; Water resource management; Water resources development – Finance; Water-supply

Disciplines

Finance and Financial Management | Natural Resource Economics | Sustainability | Water Resource Management

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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