Digital Innovations in Integrated Water Resources Management
A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "New Sensors, New Technologies and Machine Learning in Water Sciences".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 August 2026 | Viewed by 137
Special Issue Editors
Interests: hydrology; climate change; hydrodynamics; water quality; machine learning
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
We invite you to submit your manuscript to the following Special Issue of Water. This Special Issue focuses on novel digital and learning technologies with applications in water resources.
Many advances in artificial intelligence (AI), digital technologies, and data-driven modeling in recent years are rapidly transforming how water resources are explored, monitored, managed, and optimized. As climate change intensifies hydrologic extremes and water infrastructure continues to age, the demand for innovative, scalable, and integrated digital solutions has never been greater. This Special Issue of Water, Digital Innovations in Integrated Water Resources Management, invites original research papers, reviews, technical notes, and case studies that examine and promote state-of-the-art AI and digital technologies to enhance the understanding, operation, and resilience of water systems across diverse spatial landscapes—from snow-dominated headwater basins to groundwater aquifers and complex urban distribution networks—and across multiple temporal scales. We invite submissions across varied relevant topics, including, but are not limited to, the following:
AI and Machine Learning in Water Systems:
- Deep learning and hybrid physical–data-driven modeling for water and environmental forecasting, including hydrology, water quality, and extreme events;
- Large Language Models (LLMs) for decision support, scenario planning, and cross-disciplinary knowledge integration.
Digital Twins and Virtual Water Systems
- Digital twin development and incorporation for integrated watershed and infrastructure management;
- Integration of real-time sensing, supervisory control, and data acquisition to support situational awareness and operational forecasting.
Climate Change, Risk, and Resilience
- AI-enabled drought and flood risk assessment under nonstationary climate regimes;
- Modeling compound climate extremes and cascading system impacts on water delivery and storage systems.
Infrastructure and Operations
- Optimization of water system operations using advanced computational and digital tools;
- Digital asset management for canals, levees, pipelines, treatment plants, and reservoirs.
Dr. Minxue He
Prof. Dr. Zhi Ding
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
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.
Keywords
- water resources management
- artificial intelligence and machine learning applications
- digital twin and virtual water systems
- large language models for decision support
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