Abstract
AbstractThe current ‘Deployable Output’ approach for assessing water resources system performance in England and Wales is a practical, communicable means for assessing the adequacy of a water supply system and determining the relative benefits of proposed system enhancements. A recognised flaw with this approach is that it fails to characterise the severity of potential supply shortfalls, leading to mischaracterisation of risks and benefits associated with alternative candidate investments. Here, we propose a Monte Carlo procedure that could supplement the existing process by exposing the magnitude (% water demand unserved) and duration (number of days) of supply curtailments under a range of drought scenarios. The method is demonstrated using a realistic, stylised water resources system and a discrete number of infrastructure investments. Results demonstrate that vulnerability assessments can expose previously unidentified risks that might radically alter a planner’s estimate of the cost‐effectiveness of a particular investment.
Highlights
Water companies in England and Wales are responsible for the secure and efficient supply of water to households, businesses, public premises and industry (Water Industry Act of 1991)
A water supply system with insufficient capacity may lead to over-frequent restrictions on customer water use or in extreme cases severe supply shortfalls
We model six realistic, contrasting options for enhancing the system. These are: (a) Do nothing; (b) A new river abstraction to Supply Area 1; (c) Remote groundwater schemes feeding Supply Area 3, plus a new pipeline to support Supply Area 1 from Supply Area 3; (d) An increase in the transfer capacity between Supply Area 2 and Supply Area 1; (e) A re-opening of an abandoned groundwater source in Supply Area 3 plus new pipeline between Supply Area 3 and Supply Area 1; and (f) A re-zoning of demands in Supply Area 1 so that they are fed from a large neighbouring resource system via inter-basin transfer
Summary
Water companies in England and Wales are responsible for the secure and efficient supply of water to households, businesses, public premises and industry (Water Industry Act of 1991) To fulfil this duty, they must maintain and operate bulk water supply infrastructure that abstracts, stores and transfers water to ensure continuity of supply through severe and prolonged droughts. These include risk-based approaches (Hall et al, 2012; 2019; Hall and Borgomeo, 2013; Borgomeo et al, 2018) as well as multi-objective robust decision analytic frameworks (Herman et al, 2015) This has been a fast moving field of academic endeavour over recent years with significant advances in adaptive planning tools which enable flexibility in modifying engineering projects in the context of least-cost water supply investment scheduling. We apply the approach to a realistic, stylised water resources system to explore how this more in-depth analysis of risk might affect a planner’s estimation of cost-effectiveness of alternative system investments
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