Abstract for: Sequential Budget Allocation for Multi-Region Integrated Water and Sanitation Systems: Case Study of Siuna, Nicaragua

This research proposes a solution to the problem of allocating centralized municipal budgets for drinking water supply (DWS), wastewater and sewage treatment (WST), and municipal solid waste management (MSW) services simultaneously across multiple service areas or jurisdictions. The goal of the allocation is to ensure that resources are available to each jurisdiction to continue short-term operation and maintenance, and provide for capital improvements to sustain services in the long term. The approach treats the three services and multiple jurisdictions as components of a Multi-Region Integrated Water and Sanitation System (MR-IWSS). Then, I use system dynamics to determine a sequential budget allocation regime that balances short term, multi-region continuity of services with long-term capacity expansion for sustained satisfaction of demand for each service.