Coupling weap and leap models using interaction modeling

It is useful to model the interactions between the water and energy models separately. A coupled water and energy model using an interaction model lends itself to developing flexible, yet rigorous predictive simulation studies. A WEAP-LEAP interaction model is developed based on the Knowledge Interchange Broker modeling approach. A RESTful simulation framework is developed for coupling the Componentized-WEAP and Componentized-LEAP systems. Every interaction model is defined to have a set of modules where each module has its input and output ports with data transformation schemes. The input and output ports of the Componentized-WEAP and Componentized-LEAP models are coupled with those of the interaction model. A cyclic, synchronous execution protocol is defined for concurrent, bidirectional data transformations. The computational efficiency of this loosely coupled water-energy framework is acceptable compared with the tightly WEAP-LEAP system. This proposed framework shows understanding the water-energy system nexus is advantageous using interaction modeling.