Urban Water Cycle Simulation/Management Models: A Review

Abstract

Urban water management is increasingly important given the need to maintain water resources that comply with global and local standards of quantity and quality. The effective management of water resources requires the optimization of financial resources without forsaking social requirements. A number of mathematical models have been developed for this task; such models account for all components of the Urban Water Cycle (UWC) and their interactions. The wide range of models entails the need to understand their differences in an effort to identify their applicability, so academic, state, and private sectors can employ them for environmental, economic, and social ends. This article presents a description of the UWC and relevant components, a literature review of different models developed between 1990 and 2015, and an analysis of several case studies (applications). It was found that most applications are focused on new supply sources, mainly rainwater. In brief, this article provides an overview of each model's use (primarily within academia) and potential use as a decision-making tool.Keywords: urban water cycle; integrated management of urban water; computational models

Wastewater Treatment and Water Reuse in Spain. Current Situation and Perspectives

“…For this reason, regeneration treatments should present, at least, conventional tertiary treatments with lamellar settlement and filters of sand, flint, silex, etc. Nevertheless, in the last few years, numerous Spanish WTPs have performed these tertiary treatments together with advanced treatments (coagulation-flocculation processes, filtration, ultraviolet and/or reverse osmosis [4,11,12,23,26,29]).…”

“…Currently, in the water management global context, where agricultural, urban, and industrial water demands are in continuous increase, mainly due to population growth, socio-economic development, and changing consumption patterns [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9], the reclaiming of treated wastewaters should be considered as a new source of unconventional resources, whose management must be included in comprehensive planning of water resources, taking into account economic, social, and environmental issues [1,5,10]. In particular, global water demand is expected to continue increasing, with a rate of about 1% per year until 2050, accounting for an enlargement of 20-30% above the current level of water use [6][7][8][9].…”

Satellite Remote Sensing of Precipitation and the Terrestrial Water Cycle in a Changing Climate

“…New questions are asked about the urban part of the water cycle [26] and about the role of vegetated land cover and associated ecohydrological processes in moderating the so-called urban dry island and maintaining a stable environment while planning massive urbanization [27]. These issues challenge our modeling capabilities, in view of using model outputs as decision-making tools [28].…”

Towards Circular Water Neighborhoods: Simulation-Based Decision Support for Integrated Decentralized Urban Water Systems

“…Likewise, decision support systems that are designed based on the premise of central, externally provided water infrastructure now need to include the elaborate interplay between diverse decentralized technologies at multiple scales and across multiple urban water cycle domains, such as drinking water, wastewater and stormwater [16]. While numerous decision support frameworks of the metabolism type that target multiple urban water cycle streams exist, there are few applications in an integrated context that are able to include multiple decentralized options in a combined manner, let alone explore the underlying drivers of change such as future climates and social factors [17,18]. Studying the interplay between different technologies at different scales across multiple urban water cycle streams (drinking water, wastewater and stormwater), as well as finding a consistent way to translate this interplay into easily interpretable information for decision-making, remains a topic of ongoing research.…”