Optimising urban water decision making
Urban water decision making is challenging. There are invariably numerous strategies available (including scale and timing), multiple sources of uncertainty, and many tangible and intangible benefits and costs. Traditional decision-making approaches have a place, but often fail to account for these complexities. This causes poor decisions and damages credibility with stakeholders. Aither's urban water tool is a decision support tool that draws on the latest research in economics and machine learning to provide clear and actionable evidence for urban water managers.
Integrated
Integrates hydrology, engineering and economics to capture the full range of social, environmental and financial benefits and costs, both tangible and intangible
Robust
Evaluates the benefits and costs of each strategy over hundreds of future scenarios to rigorously account for multiple risks, including drought and climate change
Optimised
Intelligently compares the performance of hundreds of strategies and identifies the best, resulting in significantly better decisions, justifications to investors, and community outcomes
Aither's urban water tool can be readily tailored to solve any urban water problem, including:
- Desalination and large-scale recycling
- Localised integrated water management and stormwater harvesting opportunities
- New dams and interconnection pipelines
- Changes in operating rules and environmental flows.
The following is a stylised application to the construction and operation of a desalination plant. It is based on hypothetical data and should not be used for specific investment decisions. Please get in touch with us discuss how we can develop a bespoke application of the tool for your urban water problem.
Demonstration
In this application, Aither's urban water tool solves for the optimal strategy and compares the performance with a base strategy. A strategy consists of two thresholds:
- Build threshold The storage level below which construction of the desalination plant commences.
- Supply threshold The storage level below which the desalination plant is operated.
Inputs
System
The urban water system is represented by numerous inputs, some of which can be customised through the sliders below. Aither's urban water tool also includes assumptions around the time required to construct a desalination plant, variability of inflows, delivery losses, environmental water, value of water to customers, risk preferences and the discount rate (not shown).
Base Strategy
The base strategy is the basis for comparison with the optimal strategy, and usually reflects the status quo. The default setting is that no desalination plant is built.
Never build and operate
The desalination plant will never be constructed or operated.
Always build and operate
Construction of the desalination plant will commence immediately and will always be operated.
Optimal strategy
The table shows the optimal strategy estimated by Aither's urban water tool. The higher the values, the sooner and more frequently the desalination plant is built and operated. This strategy provides guidance on when to take action in response to falling storage levels, accounting for real option values.
Performance summary
Detailed results
The costs presented above are driven by various physical and economic factors, which are presented in the following visualisations.
Storage levels
The chart shows average storage levels under each strategy.
Depends on: inflows, water supplied by the desalination plant, releases for customers and the environment, as well as spills
Desalination construction
The histogram shows the distribution of years when construction of the desalination plant commences over different future scenarios, under each strategy.
Depends on: storage levels and the build threshold
Desalination supply
The chart illustrates the average volume of water supplied by the desalination plant under each strategy.
Depends on: whether a desalination plant has been built, storage levels, and the supply threshold
Water use
The chart reports average water use by customers under each strategy.
Depends on: storage levels
Desalination costs
The chart illustrates average desalination costs under each strategy.
Depends on: construction and operation of desalination plants
Water restriction costs
This chart shows the average costs associated with reduced water use by customers under each strategy.
Depends on: water use by customers
Total system costs
The histogram reports the distribution of total system costs over different future scenarios, under each strategy. The wider the distribution, the greater the potential risk.
Depends on: Desalination and water restriction costs