The optimization and engineering at the service of the sustainable development of energy, water and environment systems

This editorial article discusses recent findings in the optimization and engineering for sustainable development. The current Special Issue (SI) of the Optimization and Engineering journal stems from the 2022 Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems Conferences. These events included the 5th South East European, 3rd Latin American, and 17th SDEWES Conferences. Being selected from conference presentations, the papers in SI represent the main topics in optimization approaches that integrate various life-supporting systems discussed during these three events. After careful selection, the current SI accepted ten excellent papers summarized here. These contributions use differentiated modeling approaches and supporting tools, such as P-graph and network-flow modeling, computational fluid dynamics, pinch analysis (PA), and the Geographic Information System. The range of optimization methods includes mixed-integer linear and mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MILP and MINLP), dynamic programming, stochastic optimization, and PA and P-graph extensions.