Multi-Criteria Approach for Evaluating Long Term Water Strategies

Abstract

Long-term national water strategies, which are formulated to cope with the socio-economic development plans, have either positive or negative impacts in several domains including environment, economy, and social life. Intuitive evaluation of policies and actions on the basis of their social, economic, and environmental utilities is ambiguous and very complex. Setting water resources policies for a country like Egypt is a good example of this type of complexity due to its multisectoral, interdisciplinary, interrelated environment. There is a classical assumption in water resources planning and management that stipulates decisions based on optimization of a well-defined single objective. In reality, the decision-making process is much more complex. Decision makers seek an optimal compromise among several objectives or try to achieve satisfying levels of their goals. Therefore, the present study proposes the multi-criteria analysis as an approach for evaluating Egypt's long term plans to reveal their rank and behavior throughout the foreseen planning horizon. Several evaluation criteria (indicators) have been articulated and grouped into four main categories: water, environment, social, and economy. A simple empirical simulation model was used to score different criteria. Four cases have been compared and evaluated by the suggested approach. Each case represents an anticipated national water-related development plan. This is carried out under specific scenarios for uncontrolled variables such as population growth rate, hydrological river flow into the system, and others. The application showed that a multi-criteria approach could contribute significantly to the decision making process in Egypt. It provides a systematic way of presenting the tradeoffs among policy choices considering many issues.     

Water Allocation Management Under Scarcity: a Bankruptcy Approach

Water Resources Management - This study hopes to develop a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method for equitable and efficient allocation of water resources under scarcity. Based on the...     

A Grid-Based Approach to Water Scarcity Estimates for Eastern and Southern Africa

A novel approach is taken to the problem of estimating global water scarcity, using a realistic and consistent procedure applied across many countries. Water demands, surface flows and groundwater availability are estimated on a gridded basis, and various water availability indices are derived comparing the resource with the projected demand. Surface flows are estimated using a conceptual rainfall-runoff model linking climate to runoff and, in the major river basins, the runoff estimates for individual grid cells are accumulated to give estimates for the total flows at all points of interest. Groundwater availability is derived from hydrogeological maps based on estimates of the potential yield that can be expected from a borehole and the likely maximum borehole density. Estimates of potential groundwater recharge derived from the surface water model are also taken into account. Water demands are based on current and projected population and livestock numbers, and information on irrigation schemes and industrial water use. Results are presented for the application of the model to a region covering the whole of eastern and southern Africa. The main scenario considered includes the combined impact of climate change, population growth and improved living standards to the year 2050. The results for this scenario show that water scarcity is likely to increase in many countries in the region, with particular problems in the countries around Lake Victoria and in the southernmost parts of the pilot region.     

Water Allocation in Transboundary River Basins under Water Scarcity: a Cooperative Bargaining Approach

Transboundary river basins are one of the main sources of fresh water which are facing water scarcity. When transboundary water is contested not only the allocation outcomes matter but also the allocation process should possess a certain desirable properties such as flexibility and sustainability. Therefore designing a mechanism that possesses these desirable characteristics and allocates the contested water resource is important as well. This article proposed a water allocation framework by combining the bankruptcy theory with asymmetric Nash bargaining solution concept for solving the water sharing problem in transboundary river basins under scarcity. Furthermore, the allocation framework was applied to the Nile river basin and to a hypothetical water scarce transboundary river basin. The results obtained were then compared with the allocation outcomes from classical bankruptcy allocation rules. The results showed that the proposed method can provide insights which could be useful for obtaining water allocation outcomes which are easier to implement and enforce under water scarce conditions.

     

The Role of Small Reservoirs in a Water Scarcity Scenario: a Computational Approach

This paper presents the evaluation and management of water resources at the basin scale, focusing on small reservoirs. Due to a lack of knowledge on these untapped resources, a semiautomatic procedure for their surface area estimation is presented. Multispectral images from the Pleiades satellite were used to extract water bodies from a combination of different bands. In particular, the normalized difference water index (NDWI) was used to evaluate the presence or absence of water. This methodology was applied in a test area located in the upper Tiber River Basin. The performance for identifying and analysing small reservoirs was determined by comparing the satellite information with a reference database. The potential volume available from the investigated small reservoirs was compared with the water deficit derived from a decision support simulation model at the basin/subbasin scale, which studies water allocation for multipurpose uses. Five irrigation districts were analysed. For three of these districts, more than 60% of the annual deficit can be balanced with the volume stored in small reservoirs.

To date, water scarcity conditions have been increasingly frequent, so resilience in water resource management is a key requirement. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate the recovery and reuse of small reservoirs to strongly support water use, particularly irrigation and environmental uses.

     

Optimization Approach to Designing Water Supply Systems in Non-Coastal Areas Suffering from Water Scarcity

This article presents a novel optimization approach to designing water supply systems in non-coastal areas with water scarcity. In such areas, high water demand caused by population increases and economic development can only be satisfied with seawater supply. Furthermore, most of the non-coastal users are located at long distances and sometimes at altitudes very diverse from the coastline, meaning long pipelines and several pumping stations will be required to effectively supply water. The proposed optimization approach based on a mixed integer nonlinear programming model offers optimal designs of water supply systems from an economic and technical perspective. It determines the location and size of desalination plants and the design of the water transport network including pipelines of specified length and diameter and pumping stations that minimize capital and operational costs of the whole system. A case study in a hyper-arid region of Chile was used to validate the applicability of the proposed model and the results show its aptitude for determining global optimal solutions to real-scale problems.     

A Fair Contract for Managing Water Scarcity

In public utilities, under supply constraints, fairness considerations lead to a market failure. This paper characterizes a two-period principal-agent contract for demand management, that mitigates this market failure in urban water systems. The contract is designed as an extensive form mechanism using subgame perfect Nash equilibrium (SPNE) as the solution concept. The contract is fair; and is shown to be economically efficient if, in case of deviation by the agent, the gain to the agent and the loss to the principal are small. It is shown that the assumption can be avoided in an infinite horizon contract.     

Integrated Sustainable Irrigation Planning with Multiobjective Fuzzy Optimization Approach

Multiobjective fuzzy methodology is applied to a case study of Khadakwasla complex irrigation project located near Pune city of Maharashtra State, India. Three objectives, namely, maximization of net benefits, crop production and labour employment are considered. Effect of reuse of wastewater on the planning scenario is also studied. Three membership functions, namely, nonlinear, hyperbolic and exponential are analyzed for multiobjective fuzzy optimization. In the present study, objective functions are considered as fuzzy in nature whereas inflows are considered as dependable. It is concluded that exponential and hyperbolic membership functions provided similar cropping pattern for most of the situations whereas nonlinear membership functions provided different cropping pattern. However, in all the three cases, irrigation intensities are more than the existing irrigation intensity.     

A Pilot Global Assessment of Environmental Water Requirements and Scarcity

Abstract

This paper presents a first attempt to estimate the volume of water required for the maintenance of freshwater-dependent ecosystems at the global scale. This total environmental water requirement consists of ecologically relevant low-flow and high-flow components and depends upon the objective of environmental water management. Both components are related to river flow variability and estimated by conceptual rules from discharge time series simulated by the global hydrology model. A water stress indicator is further defined, which shows what proportion of the utilizable water in world river basins is currently withdrawn for direct human use and where this use is in conflict with environmental water requirements. The paper presents an estimate of environmental water requirements for 128 major river basins and drainage regions of the world. It is shown that approximately 20 to 50 percent of the mean annual river flow in different basins needs to be allocated to freshwater-dependent ecosystems to maintain them in fair conditions. This is unlikely to be possible in many developing countries in Asia and North Africa, in parts of Australia, North America, and Europe, where current total direct water withdrawals (primarily for irrigation) already tap into the estimated environmental water requirements. Over 1.4 billion people currently live in river basins with high environmental water stress. This number will increase as water withdrawals grow and if environmental water allocations remain beyond the common practice in river basin management. This paper suggests that estimates of environmental water requirements should be the integral part of global water assessments and projections of global food production.     

A comparative Appraisal of Classical and Holistic Water Scarcity Indicators

Water Resources Management - Precise measurement of water scarcity is a prerequisite to effective resource management. Researchers have developed a range of water scarcity indicators. However, no...     

A Multicriteria Approach Using MAUT to Assist the Maintenance of a Water Supply System Located in a Low-Income Community

Public services for low-income communities located in developing countries have shortcomings in their infrastructure, which very often result from the lack of capacity to supply water to all clients simultaneously. Because of this, in these regions maintenance activity becomes more important because besides the limited capacity, the losses of supply or availability due to system failures further increase the number of hours during which service to the whole community is interrupted. Given this problem, this article proposes a multi-criteria decision model based on MAUT for the planning of preventive maintenance in cases like this, and considers that besides costs, keeping the system available is an objective. The contribution of this paper is to present a model for a real and common problem in developing countries, besides the results found through the case study. By applying the model proposed in a case study in a low-income community in Brazil, it was possible to identify a maintenance policy that seeks to increase the efficiency of the system which can be achieved by making the increase in availability and minimizing cost compatible.     

Water Scarcity in Vietnam: a Point of View on Virtual Water Perspective

This paper quantifies water consumption of Vietnam in agricultural products on virtual water perspective. The calculation of water footprint and virtual water in four major agricultural crops is first implemented for seven regions of the country. The domestic and international trades of virtual water are subsequently investigated to demonstrate the commodity and virtual water flows among regions. The analysis reveals that Mekong River Delta is an important exporter of virtual water in rice product for both domestic and international trades while Central Highland is the main virtual exporter in coffee. The paper also proposes a new water stress index such that it considers both direct and indirect water use given transboundary water resources. The proposed water stress index indicates the actual water scarcity in Vietnam in which the water-rich regions i.e. Red River Delta and Mekong River Delta are in severe water stress.     

长期库水作用下星光三组倾倒变形体稳定性研究

基于室内岩土体试验,结合FLAC3D数值模拟分析,对星光三组变形体稳定性演化趋势进行分析,研究结果表明:砂岩抗剪强度指标随着干湿循环次数n及饱水时间d的增加而降低,循环次数和饱水时间分别大于25次和40 d后,其抗剪强度逐渐趋于稳定;库水位稳定在540 m和600 m水位时,岸坡整体处于稳定状态,随着干湿循环次数的增加...     

A Metric Model on Identifying the National Water Scarcity Management Ability

Our planet is getting thirstier and thirstier. Water scarcity has become an increasingly hard but urgent problem. The world's water situation engenders little optimism. About one quarter of the world's population is experiencing water scarcity. Moreover, water resources are unevenly distributed and extremely scarce in Africa and the Middle East. Water scarcity further incurs many international issues such as international conflicts, environmental refugees and disease caused by water pollution, which have made a more unstable world. To make contributions to solve the water problems, this study proposed a metric model to identify the ability of each country to manage water scarcity, and offered solutions to a country considered water over-loaded. In this paper, we developed our metric, Total Scarcity Metric, and divided it into Physical Scarcity Metric ( affected by environmental factors and population) and Economic Scarcity Metric ( affected by social factors other than population) by the two causes of water scarcity. This paper made some adjustments to an indicator we found widely-used in the literatures, and determine Physical Scarcity Metric based on it. Based on that result, Pakistan was chose as a sample region for further analysis, and Pakistan still has a long way to go. This model will prove to be advantageous for a region’s authoritative figures to consult with when in pursuit of obtaining a higher level of water resources allocation. It also can serve as a public rationale to support certain superficially incomprehensive judgments made by the administration.     

A TOPSIS-Based Multicriteria Approach to the Calibration of a Basin-Scale SWAT Hydrological Model

Water Resources Management - Calibration is one of the most important steps of hydrological modeling and applications. Observed data availability and model parameterization are two important...     

Intelligent Water Management: a Triangular Type-2 Intuitionistic Fuzzy Matrix Games Approach

Matrix games with fuzzy payoffs have spread itself nowadays in diverse fields. Fuzzy game theory with triangular type-1 fuzzy numbers are visited more by researchers. In this paper, we consider matrix games with payoffs as triangular type-2 intuitionistic fuzzy numbers, i.e., Triangular Type-2 Intuitionistic Fuzzy Matrix Game (TT2IFMG) as a new and rare concept. A new ranking function is used to get relevant solutions of TT2IFMG. We are living in times of unprecedented scientific-technical advancement, yet facing several critical global problems that threaten human welfare and our ecosystem. Water management, a burning problem of the Earth now-a-days, is treated here under the scanner of TT2IFMG environment where we discuss some policy-management toward the free and fair accession of water against its limited resources.     

Estimating the Cost and Carbon Impact of a Long Term Water Main Rehabilitation Strategy

Research has shown that some water utilities still have a strong preference for using “tried and true” open cut replacement techniques when rehabilitating water pipes in urban areas. Significant cost savings and reductions in carbon emissions can, however, be realised through the implementation of a strategy that incorporates trenchless rehabilitation techniques. This paper investigates the carbon emissions and financial implications of pipe rehabilitation strategies and analyses policies for three water utilities in Australia over a long-term planning horizon (30 years). When monetized, the carbon emissions from pipe rehabilitation are shown to be 0.1–0.2 % of the total revenue of a utility. However, given that direct and intangible cost reductions can be realised and there is a need to mitigate carbon emissions wherever possible, it is concluded that utilities should develop the capacity to use trenchless techniques in urban areas.     

长期自记水位计传感器信号的提取及补偿

针对压力式长期自记水位计存在的可靠性低、稳定性差等问题,提出了一种基于温度补偿理论的解决方法,设计了能有效传递压力信号、隔水、运行可靠的传感器隔离防护罩,制作了固态压阻传感器放大补偿电路,该电路极大地减小了零点温度漂移和灵敏度温度漂移。实际应用情况表明:该水位计记录可靠,线性度优于1‰,误差小于1 cm,具有结构简单、性能可靠、整机功耗小、可全程跟踪记录水位数据等优点。     

油气能源开发背后的溢油污染和水资源匮乏

油气能源的开发不仅需要消耗大量的淡水资源,而且给环境带来了许多危害.如何实现油气能源开发与水资源环境的可持续协调发展将成为油气开采地区经济能否持续快速发展的关键问题.综述了国内外油气能源开发中的溢油污染现状,指出了修复溢油污染环境的难点和挑战;以新兴的非常规天然气页岩气开采为例,分析了油气能源开采对淡水资源的大量需求与...