Taher Kahil
Research Group Leader and Senior Research Scholar
Water Security Research Group
Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program
Biography
Taher Kahil joined IIASA as a Research Scholar with the Water (WAT) Program in September 2015. Dr. Kahil obtained his PhD in economics at the University of Zaragoza (Spain) in 2015. His completed PhD dissertation includes the development and use of a hydro-economic model of Spanish basins and the application of cooperative game theory to water resources management. He has been the recipient of a number of scholarships and awards including the FPI-INIA PhD scholarship of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, and the award for the best PhD dissertation in economics at the University of Zaragoza.His research interests are in the areas of integrated biophysical economics modeling for basin scale water policy analysis, the economics of water allocation and water quality, and evaluation of adaptation policy interventions to global changes in water and agriculture. At IIASA, Dr. Kahil leads the development of the large-scale hydro-economic modeling framework (ECHO). He is currently involved in a number of international research projects on water-food-energy nexus management, upscaling of sustainable intensification practices, and disaster risk reduction. He has published over 40 publications including peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and policy briefs. He is a topic editor at the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (MDPI). Dr. Kahil was appointed Research Group Leader of the newly formed Water Security research group at IIASA, as of January 2021.
Last update: 09 OCT 2020
Publications
Ermolieva, T., Havlik, P. , Frank, S. , Derci Augustynczik, A.L., Kahil, T. , Balkovič, J. , Skalský, R. , Komendantova, N. , & Gorbachuk, V. (2026). Integrating EPIC-Based Meta-Models into GLOBIOM for Systemic Risks Management. In: Nexus of Sustainability. Understanding of FEWSE Systems ІI. Eds. Zagorodny, A., Bogdanov, V., Zaporozhets, A., & Ermolieva, T., pp. 71-95 Cham, Switzerland: Springer. ISBN 978-3-032-03615-5 10.1007/978-3-032-03616-2_3.
Wang, D., Sahu, R.K. , Kahil, T. , Tang, T. , Zhang, W., Ye, W., Wu, G., Chen, Z., Li, H., Wang, J., Feng, H., Shan, Y., & Hubacek, K. (2026). Water loss and return flows matter for water stress mitigation in China. Journal of Cleaner Production 538 e147398. 10.1016/j.jclepro.2025.147398.
Valle-García, Á., Montilla-López, N.M., Parrado, R., Berbel, J., Martínez-Dalmau, J., Kahil, T. , & Gutiérrez-Martín, C. (2025). Integrated assessment of resilience to drought by coupling hydro-economic and macroeconomic models. Journal of Hydrology 661 e133549. 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2025.133549.
Kahil, T. , Baccour, S., Joseph, J., Sahu, R.K. , Burek, P. , Ng, J., Asad, S., Fridman, D. , Albiac Murillo, J.M.S., Ward, F.A., & Wada, Y. (2025). Development of the global hydro-economic model (ECHO-Global version 1.0) for assessing the performance of water management options. Geoscientific Model Development 18 (20) 7987-8015. 10.5194/gmd-18-7987-2025.
Li, J., Li, Z., Wang, Q., Chen, Y., Zhang, X., Kahil, T. , & Fridman, D. (2025). Shifting frontiers of nitrogen pollution: A multi-scale assessment of long-term anthropogenic nitrogen inputs across the Yellow River basin. Ecological Indicators 178 e114066. 10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.114066.