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AGU: Water Resources Research

 

Keywords

  • drought
  • urban water supply
  • climate change
  • risk
  • water portfolios
  • multiobjective

Index Terms

  • Hydrology: Water management
  • Hydrology: Drought
  • Hydrology: Uncertainty assessment
  • Hydrology: Extreme events

Abstract

WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH, VOL. 45, W12401, 18 PP., 2009
doi:10.1029/2009WR008121

Managing population and drought risks using many-objective water portfolio planning under uncertainty

J. R. Kasprzyk

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA

P. M. Reed

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA

B. R. Kirsch

Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

G. W. Characklis

Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

This study contributes a many-objective analysis of the tradeoffs associated with using the portfolio planning approach for managing the urban water supply risks posed by growing population demands and droughts. The analysis focuses on four supply portfolio strategies: (1) portfolios with permanent rights to reservoir inflows, (2) adaptive options contracts added to the permanent rights, (3) rights, options, and leases, and (4) rights, options, and leases subject to a critical reliability constraint used to represent a maximally risk averse case. The portfolio planning strategies were evaluated using a 10 year Monte Carlo simulation of a city in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV) within Texas. Our solution sets provide the tradeoff surfaces between portfolios' expected values for cost, cost variability, reliability, surplus water, frequency of using leases, and dropped (or unused) transfers of water. Using an additional severe drought scenario, this work shows that leases and options can reduce the potential for critical supply failures when urban supply systems must contend with unexpected and severe extremes in both demand and water scarcity. In summary, this paper contributes a framework that couples interactive visualization and many-objective optimization to innovate urban water portfolio planning under uncertainty. The many-objective analysis of the LRGV case study shows that effective water portfolio planning can simultaneously improve the costs, efficiency, and reliability of urban water supply while ensuring adaptability and resiliency to future changes.

Received 15 April 2009; accepted 30 July 2009; published 3 December 2009.

Citation: Kasprzyk, J. R., P. M. Reed, B. R. Kirsch, and G. W. Characklis (2009), Managing population and drought risks using many-objective water portfolio planning under uncertainty, Water Resour. Res., 45, W12401, doi:10.1029/2009WR008121.

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