Should groundwater models from environmental evaluations be done in open source software?

The topic of open source software and environmental assessments has some interesting associations. For example, if an investment project delivers a groundwater model in Xflow software, the environmental evaluator needs an Xflow license in order to open the model, review the simulations, and report on their observations. But what about civil society? or the communities that have an interest in knowing how the model is built or in the results of the predictive simulations, do these people also need an Xflow license? And what happens if another regulator wants to review the model, can they do so or they can only ask for a technical opinion?

By using open source software, we give the freedom for any regulator, academic and civil society to review the groundwater models or any model from an environmental assessment and thus increasing the level of supervision and technical discussions about the impact. We have expanded this discussion in the following video: