Modelling cities and water infrastructure dynamics

Abstract

Urban water systems are under increasing pressure due to the impact of climate change, population growth and urbanisation. In order to make our urban water systems more adaptable to these challenges new water management strategies must be developed. During the last 20 years many new decentralised technologies have emerged and their integration with existing centralised technologies, in particular, creates complex interactions. To deepen our understanding of these interactions at the city scale and to identify possible transition strategies the development of a potential strategic planning tool is thus proposed. This paper focuses on the evolution of the urban environment and water system, in space and time, in the tool. The dynamics of the model is shown for alpine cities. Numerous test cases are stochastically generated by means of the virtual infrastructure benchmarking approach and evolved over time. Different scenarios for the development of the urban environment and water system are statistically evaluated. An increase of rainfall intensities of more than 10% was identified as critical for the performance of the combined sewer systems investigated. By using DAnCE4Water such critical points in the time line of system performance can be identified.

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