A hydrologic‐economic modeling approach for analysis of urban water supply dynamics in Chennai, India

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss a challenging water resources problem in a developing world city, Chennai, India. The goal is to reconstruct past system behavior and diagnose the causes of a major water crisis. In order to do this, we develop a hydrologic‐engineering‐economic model to address the complexity of urban water supply arising from consumers' dependence on multiple interconnected sources of water. We integrate different components of the urban water system: water flowing into the reservoir system; diversion and distribution by the public water utility; groundwater flow in the aquifer beneath the city; supply, demand, and prices in the informal tanker‐truck‐based water market; and consumer behavior. Both the economic and physical impacts of consumers' dependence on multiple sources of water are quantified. The model is calibrated over the period 2002–2006 using a range of hydrologic and socio‐economic data. The model's results highlight the inadequacy of the reservoir system and the buffering role played by the urban aquifer and consumers' coping investments during multiyear droughts.