Abstract
Ensuring stable and continuous water supplies in isolated but populated areas, such as islands, where the water supply is highly dependent on external factors, is crucial. Sudden loss of function in the water supply system can have enormous social costs. To strengthen water security and to meet multiple water demands with marginal quality, the optimized selection of locally available, diversified multi-water resources is necessary. This study considers a sustainable water supply problem of Yeongjong Island, 30 km west from Seoul, South Korea. The self-sufficiency of several locally available water resources is calculated for four different scenarios based on the volume and quality of the various water sources. Our optimization results show that using all the available local sources can address the water security issues of the island in the case of interruption in the existing supply system, which is fed from a single source of mainland Korea. This optimization framework can be useful for areas where water must be secured in the event of emergency.
Highlights
Water scarcity has become the main problem the world is facing in the 21st century [1,2]
The optimal water withdrawal scenarios were developed in order to meet the different types of water demands with proper water quality, by utilizing locally available multi-water sources
The results from both methods, genetic algorithm (GA) and generalized reduced gradient (GRG) showed that locally available water resources in the study area were 32.64%, 45.49%, 73.73%, and 100% self-reliant to meet the domestic water demands for scenarios 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively
Summary
Water scarcity has become the main problem the world is facing in the 21st century [1,2]. Verdaguer et al [1] developed a methodological approach for optimal freshwater blending to improve the resilience of water supply systems, based on a virtual case study. They simulated the decision-making process of selecting the most suitable mixture of fresh water from eight different sources, including surface water, groundwater, brackish groundwater, potable waste reuse water, and desalinated sea water. We propose a decision support system to improve the resilience of contributing water systems to ensure a continuous supply of water at a given location This developed approach is applied to Yeongjong Island, where currently the only water source is piped from Seoul, under the sea. This underwater pipeline is vulnerable to failure due to damage at any time
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