Water demand modelling using evolutionary computation techniques: integrating water equity and justice for realization of the sustainable development goals

The purpose of this review is to establish and classify the diverse ways in which evolutionary computation (EC) techniques have been employed in water demand modelling and to identify important research challenges and future directions. This review also investigates the potentials of conventional EC techniques in influencing water demand management policies beyond an advisory role while recommending strategies for their use by policy-makers with the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in perspective. This review ultimately proposes a novel integrated water demand and management modelling framework (IWDMMF) that enables water policy-makers to assess the wider impact of water demand management decisions through the principles of egalitarianism, utilitarianism, libertarianism and sufficientarianism. This is necessary to ensure that water policy decisions incorporate equity and justice. Environmental science; Applied computing; Computing methodology; Civil engineering; Process modeling; Hydrology; evolutionary computation; water justice; water demand; Artificial intelligence; water equity; Sustainable development goals