Dear Colleagues,

The multi-sectoral environmental impacts of climate change and unsustainable global economic development on water resources management require a radical rethinking of the tools available to analysts, policy makers, and managers. In the agricultural sector, addressing environmental problems associated with irrigated agriculture (such as excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides, aquifer depletion, land subsidence, seasonal drying of rivers, waterlogging, and rootzone salinization) requires tools that are more integrated and more easily adapted to consider and assess novel strategies. Likewise, for municipal and industrial sectors, that have traditionally relied upon high-quality, potable water supplies—tools are needed to explore innovative reuse and recycling strategies that minimize treatment and pollutant disposal costs. The environmental sector is recognized as a co-equal beneficial user of water resources through accounting mechanisms, such as the concept of environmental services. However, these principles are still not fully integrated with more traditional resource planning techniques.

The advance of remote sensing platforms, increase in programmatic data collection by nodal agencies and states, and ease of access to social media have democratized data and made cross-sectoral data analysis and visualization targeted to stakeholders possible. Concurrently, rapid development of computer models and computational technology has meant that these tools have become increasingly important for tackling a wide range of water resources and environmental management issues and for supporting regulatory compliance. Model-based simulation approaches have advanced in parallel with developments in the design and application of decision-support tools and techniques for more effective communication and visualization—GIS and remote sensing being the most widespread and accessible. Statistical and machine-learning methods are being used to support (and even supplant) more traditional simulation models to improve the estimation of temporal dynamics associated with pollutant concentrations and loads and other impacting phenomena.

This Special Issue on “Water resources planning toolkits for climate resiliency and economic sustainability” seeks contributions that describe innovative approaches that can be applied by stakeholders, government entities and regulators to plan environmentally sound, sustainable, and cost-effective water resource and water management strategies to cope with present and future anticipated threats. Examples from agriculture, municipal and industrial sectors, and environmental stewards are encouraged. Papers that develop cross-cutting and integrated approaches are particularly encouraged.

Some examples of topics that submitted papers may address include:

• Novel or successful sensing techniques for measuring and monitoring water resource availability, quantity, and quality as a basis for progressing towards future sustainable management.
• Novel computer-based-simulation modeling and other analytical techniques that enhance understanding of environmental and/or economic threats as an aid to the formulation of coping and solution strategies.
• Advanced sensor and remote-sensing technologies that can be integrated with more traditional modeling approaches for sustainable water and water quality resource management.
• Innovative economic and non-economic accounting practices that can be integrated with more traditional decision-support tools to meet 21^st century water, water quality, and other resource management challenges.
• Integration of new methods and approaches to address broader ecosystem services and tackle unintended consequences of water and water-quality resource management decisions and regulations.

Dr. Nigel W.T. Quinn
Dr. Vamsi Krishna Sridharan
Dr. Paul H. Hutton
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• model integration
• planning toolkits
• decision support
• climate change
• water quality
• water supply
• groundwater management
• simulation
• stakeholder
• remote sensing
• sensors
• economic sustainability
• regulatory framework