Climate change exacerbates the problems of the availability of drinking water resources, which are already threatened for 80% of the world's population. Therefore, it is important to carefully design systems that can provide water with high reliability, long-term sustainability, and lower costs. Additionally, the energy transition in the near future will lead to highly fluctuating electricity prices, which will impact the design, operation, and costs of water supply systems.
In the literature, initial coordinated planning approaches for water and energy systems have emerged. However, these mainly focus on assessing individual water facilities. Understanding more complex water systems (e.g., consisting of multiple sources), long-term investment planning for coupled water-energy systems, and long-term sustainability under the influence of climate change are crucial aspects that require further research.
Our overarching goal is to improve the planning process of infrastructure and operation of water supply systems, with a focus on water extraction and production from various sources. These decision-making methods will be tailored to resource scarcity, climate uncertainty, and the ongoing energy transition while considering the complexity of water systems with multiple sources.
Our project is structured into three work packages. In the first, we will advance methods for planning the short-term (weekly) operation of complex local water supply systems. For this purpose, we will develop novel multi-criteria optimization models (water quality, costs) for water supply systems with multiple sources integrated into intelligent energy markets. Machine learning for predicting water demand and electricity costs for water production will be embedded in this optimization problem. In the second work package, we will develop optimization models for coordinated investment planning for the infrastructure of water-energy systems. These will be designed to be resilient against droughts of different intensity and duration, such as the megadroughts that have occurred in many countries recently. In the third work package, we will expand our methods to deal with deep (i.e., challenging to quantify) uncertainties that shape long-term (decades) water management. Our developed methods will focus on adaptive investment strategies.
The results of our basic research will be concepts and methods for sustainable and cost-effective water management, including operational and infrastructure planning. The advancement of these planning methods will help prepare water supply systems for climate change and the threat to supply security.
