Abstract
In recent years, the concept of a centralized drainage system that connect an entire city to one single treatment plant is increasingly being questioned in terms of the costs, reliability, and environmental impacts. This study introduces an optimization approach based on decentralization in order to develop a cost-effective and sustainable sewage collection system. For this purpose, a new algorithm based on the growing spanning tree algorithm is developed for decentralized layout generation and treatment plant allocation. The trade-off between construction and operation costs, resilience, and the degree of centralization is a multiobjective problem that consists of two subproblems: the layout of the networks and the hydraulic design. The innovative characteristics of the proposed framework are that layout and hydraulic designs are solved simultaneously, three objectives are optimized together, and the entire problem solving process is self-adaptive. The model is then applied to a real case study. The results show that finding an optimum degree of centralization could reduce not only the network’s costs by 17.3%, but could also increase its structural resilience significantly compared to fully centralized networks.
Highlights
Sanitary sewage collection systems, or speaking sewer networks, are essential parts of any modern city; they directly influence public health and are vital for environmental protection
The current study introduces a multiobjective optimization framework for decentralized sewer system design
Certain optimum solutions with a different number of treatment plants were chosen from the obtained Pareto front for presentation in Figure 10 (8 optimum designs in total)
Summary
Speaking sewer networks, are essential parts of any modern city; they directly influence public health and are vital for environmental protection. In addition to the pollution and scarcity of available water resources, the increasing water demands have introduced significant challenges This issue is critical in arid and semi-arid countries suffering from freshwater scarcity; the need for the sustainable management and protection of water resources is striking. The expansion, reconstruction, and rapid growth of cities and industries have resulted in fundamental challenges for developing and upgrading urban water systems. Due to rapid urbanization and increased costs on one hand and reduced budgets on the other hand, the construction, operation, maintenance, and rehabilitation of centralized sewer networks present severe challenges and obstacles. To compensate for a lack of natural ground slope, centralized networks serving large and flat areas mostly require pumping stations, which bring about additional costs, consume energy, and make the system fragile
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