Facing pressures to contend with continual changes in physical availability, to balance water supply with environmental and social impacts, and to build resilience to environmental hazards such as ...droughts and climate change, water managers increasingly use management plans as a blueprint for managing water. We apply qualitative content analysis to evaluate water management plans from diverse water and land use organizations in California's Central Valley. To understand whether plans are working toward holistic, multi-dimensional management, we assess plans' coverage of water supply, environmental, and socioeconomic dimensions of water use, as well as the quality and implementability of the plans. The plans provide a strong assessment of water supplies and indicate progression toward integrated water resource management. However, we identify gaps in managing water for the environment, considering socioeconomic and distributional impacts, planning for future drought and climate change, and effective coordination with other water agencies and the public.
Water demand continues to increase amid shrinking natural water sources in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. This holds true for Stellenbosch Municipality, which is situated in the Western ...Cape. The prevailing draught, coupled with rainfall projections predicting that the region will be in a high-risk draught category by 2040, prompted municipal authorities to devise alternative water sources, such as urban waste water recycling (UWWR), to augment its water supplies. This water management approach is a component of integrated urban water management (IUWM), which stems from the water ‘governance’ paradigm. Research on the transition process from a ‘government’ to a ‘governance’ UWWR paradigm is limited both in the global south and in South Africa. Hence, the main objective of this study was to investigate the action knowledge required for a sustainable transition from a ‘government’ to an IUWW ‘governance’ paradigm in the context of Stellenbosch town. The study adopted a transdisciplinary research methodology, while the transformative research paradigm guided the research. Quantitative data collection from a single case study, namely Stellenbosch town, was through the administration of a questionnaire distributed to purposefully sampled participants. ANOVA statistical tools analysed the data. The study ascertained that transitioning frameworks considered in this study could guide a transition process of migrating from conventional urban wastewater management government towards IUWM governance principles in Stellenbosch town and other global south locations.
Target and Action knowledge for transitioning towards IUWM principles Stellenbosch. Source: Authors. Display omitted
•Social elements are the strongest drivers in achieving urban waste water recycling (UWWR) in Stellenbosch.•The social elements identified were perceptions of different communities, urbanization and rural-urban in- migration.•The agricultural community is willing and ready to implement UWWR.•There is need for formulation of UWWR policies which explicitly articulates the “How”, “What”, “Where” and “When” in UWWR initiatives.•There are insurmountable in-house sanitation challenges stemming from the informal settlements.
Display omitted
•Overview and analysis of 147 local strategies for adaptation to climate change in Europe.•Development of local adaptation strategies is increasing throughout Europe.•Flood ...protection, water management and urban planning are major response actions.•Differing patterns of adaptation planning and adaptive capacity were identified among European regions.
Europe’s climate change vulnerability pushes for initiatives such as the European Adaptation Strategy and the associated Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy. What are the triggers and barriers, for which sectors and for which risks and how is adaptation funded? This paper examines 147 Local Adaptation Strategies in Europe. Key triggers were incentives via research projects, implementation of EU policies and the increasing frequency of extreme climate events. Insufficient resources, capacity, political commitment and uncertainty were the main barriers. Prioritized sectors reflected the main local vulnerabilities - flood protection and water management, built environment and urban planning. Differing patterns of adaptation planning and adaptive capacity were identified among different regions in Europe. Large municipalities generally fund adaptation locally, whereas international and national funding appears to be more important for adaptation in less urban or densely populated territories. The database of LAS described in the present study can be expanded and used to increase the understanding of and promotion of local adaptation action in Europe and beyond.
Throughout the 20th century, the prevailing approach toward nitrogen management in municipal wastewater treatment was to remove ammonium by transforming it into dinitrogen (N2) using biological ...processes such as conventional activated sludge. While this has been a very successful strategy for safeguarding human health and protecting aquatic ecosystems, the conversion of ammonium into its elemental form is incompatible with the developing circular economy of the 21st century. Equally important, the activated sludge process and other emerging ammonium removal pathways have several environmental and technological limitations. Here, we assess that the theoretical energy embedded in ammonium in domestic wastewater represents roughly 38–48% of the embedded chemical energy available in the whole of the discharged bodily waste. The current routes for ammonium removal not only neglect the energy embedded in ammonium, but they can also produce N2O, a very strong greenhouse gas, with such emissions comprising the equivalent of 14–26% of the overall carbon footprint of wastewater treatment plants. N2O emissions often exceed the carbon emissions related to the electricity consumption for the process requirements of WWTPs. Considering these limitations, there is a need to develop alternative ammonium management approaches that center around recovery of ammonium from domestic wastewater rather than deal with its “destruction” into elemental dinitrogen. Current ammonium recovery techniques are applicable only at orders of magnitude above domestic wastewater strength, and so new techniques based on physicochemical adsorption are of particular interest. A new pathway is proposed that allows for mainstream ammonium recovery from wastewater based on physicochemical adsorption through development of polymer-based adsorbents. Provided adequate adsorbents corresponding to characteristics outlined in this paper are designed and brought to industrial production, this adsorption-based approach opens perspectives for mainstream continuous adsorption coupled with side-stream recovery of ammonium with minimal chemical requirements. This proposed pathway can bring forward an effective resource-oriented approach to upgrade the fate of ammonium in urban water management without generating hidden externalized environmental costs.
The Murray-Darling Basin Plan is generally applauded globally for 'best-practice' water management. The notion of 'best practice' is fluid, informed by constant learning from what works and what does ...not. The Plan's 10-year anniversary in 2022 provides a pivotal point to reflect on practical lessons learnt throughout its implementation and incorporate those into contemporised 'best practice'. This paper explores the emerging paradigm of participatory approaches with private landholders in the conservation and biodiversity fields, and its applicability to water management 'best practice'. Through an original framework and case studies, we explore the opportunity that these practical exemplars offer to refine contemporary theoretical notions of best practice. A case is ultimately presented in which a contemporised paradigm - based on co-operation, co-benefit outcomes and participatory partnerships - offers significant potential for future management in the Basin, especially to overcome deeply entrenched trust deficits among communities.
•Modelling results demonstrate the effectiveness of LIDs even for the design storm.•The Effective Impervious Area (EIA) reduction mainly affects the peak reduction.•EIA reduction larger than 5% is ...required to obtain noticeable hydrologic benefits.•Hydrologic performance linearly increases with increasing EIA reduction percentages.•The peak reduction diminishes by 0.14 moving from 2 to 10-year return period event.
In this paper, the implementation of Low Impact Development systems (LIDs) as source control solutions that contribute to restore the critical components of natural flow regimes, is analyzed at the urban catchment scale. The hydrologic response of a small urban catchment is investigated under different land use conversion scenarios including the installation of green roofs and permeable pavements. The modeling is undertaken using the EPA SWMM; the “do nothing” scenario is calibrated and validated based on field measurements while the LID control modules are calibrated and validated based on laboratory test measurements. The simulations are carried out by using as input the synthetic hyetographs derived for three different return periods (T=2, 5 and 10years). Modeling results confirm the effectiveness of LID solutions even for the design storm event (T=10years): in particular a minimum land use conversion area, corresponding to the Effective Impervious Area reduction of 5%, is required to obtain noticeable hydrologic benefits. The conversion scenario response is analyzed by using the peak flow reduction, the volume reduction and the hydrograph delay as hydrologic performance indexes. Findings of the present research show that the hydrologic performance linearly increases with increasing the EIA reduction percentages: at 36% EIA reduction (corresponding to the whole conversion of rooftops and parking lot areas), the peak and volume reductions rise till 0.45 and 0.23 respectively while the hydrograph delay increases till 0.19.
In this study, we evaluated the cumulative hydrologic performance of green infrastructure in a residential area of the city of Parma, Ohio, draining to a tributary of the Cuyahoga River. Green ...infrastructure included the following spatially distributed devices: 16 street‐side bioretention cells, 7 rain gardens, and 37 rain barrels. Data consisted of rainfall and outfall flow records for a wide range of storm events, including pretreatment and treatment periods. The Stormwater Management Model was calibrated and validated to predict the hydrologic response of green infrastructure. The calibrated model was used to quantify annual water budget alterations and discharge frequency over a 6 year simulation period. For the study catchment, we observed a treatment effect with increases of 1.4% in evaporation, 7.6% in infiltration, and a 9.0% reduction in surface runoff. The hydrologic performance of green infrastructure was evaluated by comparing the flow duration curve for pretreatment and treatment outfall flow scenarios. The flow duration curve shifted downward for the green infrastructure scenario. Discharges with a 0.5, 1, 2, and 5 year return period were reduced by an average of 29%. Parameter and predictive uncertainties were inspected by implementing a Bayesian statistical approach.
Plain Language Summary
Green infrastructure facilities experience a range of rainfall‐runoff events that are difficult to fully capture during a monitoring program. In this study, we evaluated the cumulative hydrologic performance of green infrastructure in a residential area of the city of Parma, Ohio, USA. Green infrastructure involved the following spatially distributed devices: 16 street‐side bioretention cells, 7 rain gardens, and 37 rain barrels. A hydrologic model was calibrated and validated to predict the hydrologic response of green infrastructure. The calibrated model was used to quantify annual water budget alterations and discharge frequency over a 6 year simulation period. For the study catchment, we observed a treatment effect with increases of 1.4% in evaporation, 7.6% in infiltration, and 9.0% reduction in surface runoff.
Key Points
Green infrastructure decreased the magnitude of discharges with a 0.5, 1, 2, and 5 year return period
Street‐side bioretention cells exhibited the highest performance by disconnecting impervious areas from streets, driveways, and sidewalks
A Bayesian calibration of the SWMM model considering the cumulative effects of several storm water control measures was assessed
Geographic models are becoming key methods for geographic environment research. In addition to the progress in model sharing and reusing, geographic simulation (geo-simulation) knowledge sharing and ...application are increasingly attracting much attention. This study aims to provide both models and geo-simulation knowledge simultaneously to support Web-based simulation. Firstly, we propose a geo-simulation approach consisting of three modules concerning data, model and knowledge with a conceptual framework. Secondly, taking the Storm Water Management Model as instance, a Web-based prototype system is implemented with geo-simulation knowledge graph constructed based on literatures using bilateral long shortterm memory - conditional random field (BiLSTM - CRF). Thirdly, application of the system in Nanchong, China is conducted with user experiences analysis. The results demonstrate that the proposed approach can effectively provide geo-simulation knowledge. Moreover, it can alleviate the difficulty of the geographic simulation process for diverse modelers, and further improve the use of the model simultaneously.
•An innovative geo-simulation approach integrating knowledge graph with model-services is proposed.•A Web-based prototype system was established to verify the approach.•The geo-simulation knowledge was successfully applied in urban stormwater management with SWMM.•The approach can effectively promote the sharing and application of geo-simulation models and knowledge.
ABSTRACT
This study explores strategies for long‐term reservoir simulations by combining generic rule‐based reservoir management model (RMM) and machine learning (ML) models for two major ...multipurpose reservoirs — Allatoona Lake and Lake Sidney Lanier in the southeastern United States. First, a standalone RMM is developed to simulate daily release and storage during Water Year 1981–2015. Next, using Long‐Short Term Memory (LSTM) as the ML technique, a standalone LSTM model is trained based on reservoir inflow and meteorological observations to simulate reservoir release and estimate reservoir storage through water balance calculation. Three hybrid modeling strategies are developed, one using RMM output as an additional LSTM input (H1), another using LSTM as the initial release estimate in RMM (H2), and the third combining the first two strategies (H3). The Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) for release (NSE‐r), storage (NSE‐s), and their mean (NSE‐avg) are used for model evaluation. Overall, H1 improves NSE‐r to 0.65 and 0.54 for Allatoona and Lanier, respectively, compared to standalone RMM (0.44 and 0.21); however, its storage trajectory did not produce a physically feasible solution, similar to LSTM. H2 and especially H3 show that they can retain the best features from RMM and LSTM, with H3 NSE‐avg being 0.695 and 0.55 for Allatoona and Lanier outperforming RMM (0.615 and 0.29). The findings suggest a robust simulation capacity for large‐scale water management in future studies.
PDF
