Abstract
This paper presents the development of a novel system dynamics (SD) model for better understanding the interrelation and feedback mechanism between the wastewater collection (WWC) and wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) systems. Causal loop diagrams (CLDs) are developed and discussed to depict and understand feedback and inter-connections between physical, financial, and consumer sectors. The developed SD model is then extended to include the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as a proxy for the environmental sector and for an environmental sustainability assessment of strategic decisions related to asset management planning of wastewater infrastructure system. It also adds new policy levers, such as population growth and urban densification in the social sector, and minimum fee-hike rates in the finance sector to enhance the representation of real-world conditions in the asset management planning. This new SD model will enable decision-makers to assess the sustainability impacts of their strategic decisions on wastewater systems, find synergistic cost-saving opportunities, and improve the sustainability performance of their asset management plans.
Highlights
The government of Canada has committed to and established strategic objectives to move the country toward economic, social, and environmental sustainable development
The overall goal of this paper is to develop the system dynamics (SD) model of integrated wastewater collection (WWC) and wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) system presented by Mohammadifardi et al [12] for sustainability assessment of wastewater asset management plans
T [year] is the current time; biological oxygen demand (BOD) [kg/capita/year] is the mass of dissolved oxygen needed by aerobic biological organisms to break down organic material presented in wastewater sample in year t; BOD0 [kg/capita/year] is the initial BOD; 365/1000 [(day/year)/(m3 /liter)] is the conversion factor to convert days to year and liter to cubic meter; Water distribution (WD) (t) [liter/capita/day] is the average daily water demand of a residential user in year t; consumptive fraction (CUF) [%] is the percentage of water received by customers that is not returned as sewage to the
Summary
The government of Canada has committed to and established strategic objectives to move the country toward economic, social, and environmental sustainable development. The current studies on sustainable include all life-cycle stages, support scenario development, and include the consequences on upstream and asset management planning often consider the environmental, economic, and social components downstreamrelated processes (i.e.,water water and wastewater (WWTP) systems, to urban anddistribution wastewater in(WD). The overall goal of this paper is to develop the system dynamics (SD) model of integrated wastewater collection (WWC) and WWTP system presented by Mohammadifardi et al [12] for sustainability assessment of wastewater asset management plans To achieve this objective, causal loop diagrams (CLDs) are developed to demonstrate the interconnections and feedback mechanisms between the different components of the physical, economic, consumer, and environmental sectors related to WWC and WWTP systems.
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