Modelling sustainable urban water management options

Abstract

This paper describes the development of a prototype decision-support tool, termed optioneering tool-1 (WaND-OT1), supporting decisions for urban water management, which explores issues of the compatibility of alternative sustainable technologies and sustainability evaluation at a strategic level. TheWaND-OT1 prototype was developed in Excel and Matlab (SIMULINK) to be both computationally strong and user-friendly. The user interacts with the WaND-OT1 through the Excel platform, which exchanges data and user preferences with a SIMULINK-based systems model. To explore its potential and identify research directions, the prototype WaND-OT1 was tested under a variety of urban water management scenarios, including water recycling, rainwater harvesting and introduction of low water consumption devices. It is concluded that even at this early stage of its development, the WaND-OT1 can be considered as a flexible tool that successfully represents the main components of the urban water cycle and produces plausible and useful results in terms of the interaction of components. This paper describes the development of a prototype decision-support tool, termed optioneering tool-1 (WaND-OT1), supporting decisions for urban water management, which explores issues of the compatibility of alternative sustainable technologies and sustainability evaluation at a strategic level. TheWaND-OT1 prototype was developed in Excel and Matlab (SIMULINK) to be both computationally strong and user-friendly. The user interacts with the WaND-OT1 through the Excel platform, which exchanges data and user preferences with a SIMULINK-based systems model. To explore its potential and identify research directions, the prototype WaND-OT1 was tested under a variety of urban water management scenarios, including water recycling, rainwater harvesting and introduction of low water consumption devices. It is concluded that even at this early stage of its development, the WaND-OT1 can be considered as a flexible tool that successfully represents the main components of the urban water cycle and produces plausible and useful results in terms of the interaction of components.