Monitoring and validation of decentralised water and wastewater systems for increased uptake

Sizing of Domestic Rainwater Harvesting Systems Using Economic Performance Indicators to Support Water Supply Systems

This paper presents a monitoring-based investigation of rainwater collection systems using economic performance indicators in a group of households with nonconventional end-uses for rainwater that are not traditionally associated with rainwater supply. The monitored data for five household rainwater tank systems were analysed in two stages. For the first stage, the data was empirically analysed to develop a method to predict effective roof catchment areas. For the second stage, the effective roof catchment areas, together with roof area connection percentages, were analysed against different types of water demands in individual households. The individual systems were investigated for yield capacities, costs and water security using a modified Roof Runoff Harvesting Systems average annual yield model based on daily water balance procedures. The Life Cycle Costing analysis of the systems using the model was based on the Capital Recovery Method by taking into consideration the capital costs as well as ongoing costs for maintenance, replacement and operation of the systems. The analysis established the optimal sizing requirements for the studied rainwater tanks and their corresponding roof area connectivity.

The Potential of Knowing More: A Review of Data-Driven Urban Water Management

The promise of collecting and utilizing large amounts of data has never been greater in the history of urban water management (UWM). This paper reviews several data-driven approaches which play a key role in bringing forward a sea change. It critically investigates whether data-driven UWM offers a promising foundation for addressing current challenges and supporting fundamental changes in UWM. We discuss the examples of better rain-data management, urban pluvial flood-risk management and forecasting, drinking water and sewer network operation and management, integrated design and management, increasing water productivity, wastewater-based epidemiology and on-site water and wastewater treatment. The accumulated evidence from literature points toward a future UWM that offers significant potential benefits thanks to increased collection and utilization of data. The findings show that data-driven UWM allows us to develop and apply novel methods, to optimize the efficiency of the current network-based approach, and to extend functionality of today's systems. However, generic challenges related to data-driven approaches (e.g., data processing, data availability, data quality, data costs) and the specific challenges of data-driven UWM need to be addressed, namely data access and ownership, current engineering practices and the difficulty of assessing the cost benefits of data-driven UWM.