Supply and demand and the design of surface-water supplies / Offre et demande et l'établissement d'une alimentation en eau de surface

Abstract

Abstract Procedures that traditionally have been used to size water-supply reservoirs and to design related treatment plants and distribution systems have ignored the powerful tool of economic marginal analysis. Marginal analysis, when combined with Bayesian techniques, can be used to specify optimum designs for water supplies that are dominated by the need for over-year storage of streamflow. The combination of these two tools also provides a means for evaluating the alternative of collecting additional streamflow data prior to designing the water-supply system. A simplified example of the Bayesian marginal analysis that has ten years of streamflow data as an input demonstrates the design technique and evaluation of an added year of streamflow data. The economic demand curve and the cost analyses that are contained in the technique are assumed to be known. This assumption limits the utility of the technique until it can be extended to include the economic uncertainties.