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Risk Assessment and Decision Support in Drinking Water Systems

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A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Urban Water Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2022) | Viewed by 26236

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Andreas Lindhe

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Guest Editor

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, 412 96 Göteborg, Sweden
Interests: drinking water supply; risk assessment; decision analysis; modelling

Prof. Dr. Lars Rosen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, 412 96 Göteborg, Sweden
Interests: drinking water; hydrogeology; risk assessment; decision analysis; contamination

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The supply of drinking water is of key importance in society and it is well known that a safe and secure drinking water supply is crucial for economic development, human health and social well-being. However, urbanization, overuse, health hazards due to pollution, changing demographics, aging infrastructure and a changing climate among other things put drinking water systems at risk. Hence, an efficient management of risks, including good decision support to guide implementation of mitigation measures and other actions, is needed to guarantee the safety and security of the drinking water supplies. Managers of drinking waters systems need good risk-based decision support on both strategic and operational levels in order to prioritize available resources and reduce or control risks so that a long-term sustainable system is achieved. The available resources for assessing risk, providing decision support and implementing measures, differ heavily between countries and regions and different types of methods and tools are thus needed. The risk-based approach is widely known within the drinking water sector trough, for example, the concept of Water Safety Plans as presented by the World Health Organization. However, there is an urgent need to develop additional and better methods, tools and organizational structures for identifying, assessing and managing risks in order to provide water managers and others with relevant support for their decisions that are made under uncertainty. Risk assessments need to include social, environmental and socio-economic aspects to better inform and support decisions to achieve a more sustainable management of drinking water systems.

This Special Issue brings together emerging approaches, challenges and opportunities related to risk assessment and decision support in drinking water systems management. Although risk assessment and decision analysis methods are widely applied in different sectors of society, there is still a great potential for further development within the drinking water sector. There is a substantial need for both theory and method development relating to identification and assessment of drinking water system risks, related to the system as a whole as well as specific parts of the system; decision analysis of risk mitigation measures; and communication of risk. There is also a need for improvement of organizational structures to facilitate implementation of risk management in drinking water management organizations.

Dr. Andreas Lindhe
Prof. Dr. Lars Rosen
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

Drinking water supply
Safety
Security
Risk assessment
Risk management
Risk analysis
Risk evaluation
Decision analysis
Decision supports
Modelling
Sustainability

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 9791 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Optimal Maintenance and Replacement Strategy for Deteriorating Water Mains

by Peiyuan Lin, Xianying Chen, Sheng Huang and Baosong Ma

Water 2022, 14(13), 2097; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14132097 - 30 Jun 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2456

Abstract

Municipal water mains are built with a target service age of several decades. In such a long life, breaks can occur, even multiple times. Water mains can be maintained before or right at breaks. The former is referred to as the preventive strategy, whereas the latter is the corrective strategy. Depending on the costs of repair, replacement, and failure consequence, different strategies should typically be implemented in order to achieve the optimal watermain management in terms of life cycle costs. This study aims to investigate the optimal scenarios for the two strategies based on a two-time-scale (TTS) point process used to model the deterioration of water mains. The corrective strategy is to determine the optimal number

n

, where upon the

n

-th break, implementing a replacement for water main is justified, compared to a minimal repair. The preventive strategy is to determine the optimal replacement time in terms of pipe survival probability

P_{s}

. Monte Carlo simulations are used to investigate the optimal

n

and

P_{s}

considering a number of influential factors, including model parameters of the intensity function and ratios of maintenance, replacement, and consequence costs. Then, the full distributions of the life cycle costs are characterized with the mean of total life cycle costs being the target for optimization. Last, a case study is illustrated to demonstrate the application of both strategies in real water systems. An important finding is that with a typical pipe diameter of 400 mm and length of 200 m, the optimal

n

is typically less than five, and the optimal

P_{s}

is below 50%. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Risk Assessment and Decision Support in Drinking Water Systems)

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26 pages, 6813 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Integrating Ecosystem Services into Risk Assessments for Drinking Water Protection

by Nadine Gärtner, Andreas Lindhe, Julia Wahtra, Tore Söderqvist, Lars-Ove Lång, Henrik Nordzell, Jenny Norrman and Lars Rosén

Water 2022, 14(8), 1180; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14081180 - 7 Apr 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2826

Abstract

Water protection is a widely supported goal in society, but competing interests often complicate the implementation of water protection measures. Moreover, the benefits of protection efforts are typically underestimated as risk assessments focus on the provision of drinking water and neglect the additional services provided by a clean drinking water source. We developed a list of water system services (WSS) that allows assessment of all biotic and abiotic services provided by a drinking water source. The WSS were derived from the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES). The objectives of this paper are to (i) introduce the concept of WSS, (ii) describe a procedure on how to develop a region-specific list of WSS and present a list of WSS specifically tailored to Sweden, (iii) present how to integrate WSS into a risk assessment for drinking water, and (iv) illustrate a practical application on a Swedish case study. The results, presented as an assessment matrix, show the provided services and contrast the hazard sources with their impact on all services. The WSS assessment can be used to communicate and negotiate the extent of water protection measures with relevant stakeholders and illustrate synergies and trade-offs of protective measures beyond drinking water protection. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Risk Assessment and Decision Support in Drinking Water Systems)

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14 pages, 3388 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Risk-Based Evaluation of Improvements in Drinking Water Treatment Using Cost-Benefit Analysis

by Nils-Petter Sköld, Viktor Bergion, Andreas Lindhe, Alexander Keucken and Lars Rosén

Water 2022, 14(5), 782; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14050782 - 2 Mar 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3260

Abstract

Reliable and safe drinking water supply requires adequate risk management. Decision support models can aid decisionmakers to effectively evaluate risk mitigation measures and allocate societal resources. Here, a Swedish case study illustrates how the installation of ultrafiltration membranes can be evaluated by combining risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis. Quantitative microbial risk assessment was used to assess several contamination sources and estimate the achieved risk reduction from waterborne pathogens using Campylobacter, Norovirus, and Cryptosporidium as reference pathogens. The societal value of the improved water quality was estimated in the cost-benefit analysis by monetising the gained quality adjusted life years and aesthetic water quality improvements. The calculated net present value (mean of 7 MEUR) indicated that the installation of the ultrafiltration membranes was a sound investment from a societal economic perspective. The ultrafiltration membranes reduced the annual probability of infection from 3 × 10⁻² to 10⁻⁷, well below the U.S. EPA’s acceptable level, as well as improving the aesthetic quality of the drinking water. The results provide a novel example of the importance for water distributors to consider not only health-related metrics when evaluating treatment options or monitoring the drinking water quality, but to also consider the aesthetic quality of the drinking water. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Risk Assessment and Decision Support in Drinking Water Systems)

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25 pages, 5417 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Relationships between Insufficient Drinking Water Supply and the Socio-Economic Development of Small Municipalities: Mayors’ Opinions from the Czech Republic

by Jan Kopp, Lucie Kureková, Pavlína Hejduková, David Vogt and Tomáš Hejduk

Water 2021, 13(15), 2098; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13152098 - 30 Jul 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 4514

Abstract

Repeatedly occurring droughts in the Czech Republic in previous years have heightened the need to answer questions concerning the provision of drinking water in small municipalities in the context of their development. The goal of the research was to assess what mutual relationships exist between insufficient drinking water supply and the socio-economic level of municipalities with less than 2000 inhabitants. The basis of the study is formed by data collected via a questionnaire survey of the mayors of 2110 municipalities. For the purposes of the analysis, the Drinking Water Supply Threat Index (DWSTI) composite indicator was established. Subsequently, the effect of selected factors on DWSTI was determined via correlation and regression analysis, and results were compared for two size groups of municipalities indicate water supply problems. The digging of new wells for individual needs is seen to be the most significant signal of problems. The absence of water supply infrastructure results in a heightening of the socio-economic deprivation of small municipalities, as it limits new building and becomes a limitation to their development. A solution is possible based on regional or trans-regional financial and managerial support of development together with an active approach on the part of municipalities. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Risk Assessment and Decision Support in Drinking Water Systems)

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15 pages, 870 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

The Value of Water—Estimating Water-Disruption Impacts on Businesses

by Karin Sjöstrand, Josefine Klingberg, Noor Sedehi Zadeh, Mattias Haraldsson, Lars Rosén and Andreas Lindhe

Water 2021, 13(11), 1565; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13111565 - 1 Jun 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 5454

Abstract

As water serves as a necessary and often irreplaceable input in a range of goods and services, a disruption in water supply can cause lost production and sales for businesses. Thus, large benefits may be generated by reducing the risk of water disruptions. To enable selection of economically viable risk mitigation measures, the investment costs should be weighed against the benefits of risk mitigation. Consequently, quantitative estimates of the consequences of disruptions need to be available. However, despite the importance of water to businesses, the literature on their financial losses due to short and long-term water disruptions is still scarce. The aim of this paper is to estimate time-dependent water supply resiliency factors for economic sectors, i.e., a metric focusing on the level of output that businesses can uphold during a disruption, to contribute to better decision support for water supply planning and risk management. An online survey was used to gather data from 1405 companies in Sweden on consequences of complete and unplanned water supply outages. Results show that Food, beverage and tobacco manufacturing and Accommodation and food services are the two most severely affected sectors over all analyzed disruption durations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Risk Assessment and Decision Support in Drinking Water Systems)

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29 pages, 21135 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Optimal Design of District Metered Areas in a Water Distribution Network Using Coupled Self-Organizing Map and Community Structure Algorithm

by Xuan Khoa Bui, Malvin S. Marlim and Doosun Kang

Water 2021, 13(6), 836; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13060836 - 18 Mar 2021

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 5697

Abstract

Operation and management of a water distribution network (WDN) by district metered areas (DMAs) bring many benefits for water utilities, particularly regarding water loss control and pressure management. However, the optimal design of DMAs in a WDN is a challenging task. This paper proposes an approach for the optimal design of DMAs in the multiple-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework based on the outcome of a coupled model comprising a self-organizing map (SOM) and a community structure algorithm (CSA). First, the clustering principle of the SOM algorithm is applied to construct initial homologous clusters in terms of pressure and elevation. CSA is then coupled to refine the SOM-based initial clusters for the automated creation of multiscale and dynamic DMA layouts. Finally, the criteria for quantifying the performance of each DMA layout solution are assessed in the MCDA framework. Verifying the model on a hypothetical network and an actual WDN proved that it could efficiently create homologous and dynamic DMA layouts capable of adapting to water demand variability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Risk Assessment and Decision Support in Drinking Water Systems)

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