Optimal design of water reuse networks in cities through decision support tool development and testing

Water scarcity and droughts are an increasing issue in many parts of the world. In the context of urban water systems, the transition to circularity may imply wastewater treatment and reuse. Planning and assessment of water reuse projects require decision-makers evaluating the cost and benefits of a...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Calle Ortega, Eusebi, Martínez Álvarez, David, Buttiglieri, Gianluigi, Corominas Tabares, Lluís, Farreras Casamort, Miquel, Saló Grau, Joan, Vilà Talleda, Pere, Pueyo-Ros, Josep, Comas Matas, Joaquim
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:España
Institución:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repositorio:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:10256/28148
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10256/28148
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Aigua -- Reutilització
Water reuse
Aigües residuals -- Depuració
Sewage -- Purification
Descripción
Sumario:Water scarcity and droughts are an increasing issue in many parts of the world. In the context of urban water systems, the transition to circularity may imply wastewater treatment and reuse. Planning and assessment of water reuse projects require decision-makers evaluating the cost and benefits of alternative scenarios. Manual or semi-automatic approaches are still common practice for planning both drinking and reclaimed water distribution networks. This work illustrates a decision support tool that, based on open data sources and graph theory coupled to greedy optimization algorithms, is able to automatically compute the optimal reclaimed water network for a given scenario. The tool provides not only the maximum amount of served reclaimed water per unit of invested cost, but also the length and diameters of the pipes required, the location and size of storage tanks, the population served, and the construction costs, i.e., everything under the same architecture. The usefulness of the tool is illustrated in two different but complementary cities in terms of size, density, and topography. The construction cost of the optimal water reclaimed network for a city of approximately 100,000 inhabitants is estimated to be in the range of €0.17–0.22/m3 (for a payback period of 30 years)