Water Distribution System Capacity Under Uncertain Climate Change

Various water distribution systems were analyzed through various scenarios to identify hydraulic capacity shortfalls in water mains, which result from climate change-driven demand increases. Results were compared against the status quo, in which only natural demand growth (i.e., due to urbanization and population growth) is considered. Watermains in need of renewal/replacement due to the extra demand were identified. Common patterns were explored and the results indicated that the distribution networks examined in this study are generally robust and contain sufficient hydraulic redundancy as to not be significantly affected for the additional demand that is associated with rising temperatures due to climate change. At the same time, this type of analysis does offer a tool to anticipate localized deficiencies in the systems and anticipate and prioritize actions for pipe renewal and rehabilitation. The suggested methodology is highly scalable and parallel processing significantly reduces the required computation time and enables the efficient implementation of Monte Carlo simulation to examine the significant variability that is inherent in this type of analysis.