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System dynamics modelling for an urban water system : net-zero water analysis for Peachland (BC)

International Construction Specialty Conference (5th : 2015 : Vancouver, B.C.); Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

A Net-zero water (NZW) community limits the consumption of freshwater resources and returns water back to the same watershed, so as not to deplete the groundwater and surface water resources of that region in quantity and quality over the course of a year. A NZW study includes the analysis of various combinations of water supply sources, water conservation, and reuse over time. Such dynamics can be modelled by using system dynamics. This article aims to develop a system dynamics model (SDM) to achieve NZW at the urban community level. The SDM was developed by including all life cycle stages of urban water using STELLA® software. The developed SDM was validated using the historical data of Peachland water consumption (BC). Moreover, the model was applied to analyze NZW of the Peachland community during 2015-34 by considering six different scenarios. In the base case scenario, two thirds of the supplied water will be used for irrigation and will not be directly available to the community for reuse. As the community is in a semi-arid region, the Peachland community can only achieve NZW or even net-plus water for the initial five years by considering Peachland as a typical urban community without agriculture, and by implementing various water efficiency improvement measures. However, due to the projected increase in water demand, the NZW cannot be achieved after 2019.

Text

2015-11-27

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/53827

Froese, T. M., Newton, L., Sadeghpour, F. & Vanier, D. J. (EDs.) (2015). Proceedings of ICSC15: The Canadian Society for Civil Engineering 5th International/11th Construction Specialty Conference, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. June 7-10.

Faculty; Other

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