0000000000454565
AUTHOR
Ignazio Scolaro
Evaluating Infrastructure Alternatives for Regional Water Supply Systems by Model-assisted Cost-benefit Analysis – A Case Study from Apulia, Italy
The main challenge associated to regional water supply systems planning lies in understanding the best infrastructure alternatives to improve service given a certain configuration of the resources system. While cost-effectiveness assessments are still widespread in this type of analyses, they do not account for the fact that, especially in mature systems, service improvements tend to follow the law of marginal diminishing returns, so that a cost – benefit assessment should be preferable. Both costs and benefits can be organized into a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) framework. In a complex system, a model reproducing its topology and characteristics better describes the impacts of the alternati…
Improving the resilience to drought of the Apulian water resources system – an hydroeconomic model
The paper presents a hydro-economic model of the Apulian water resources system, in southern Italy, i.e. a mathematical programming model of the allocations explicitly accounting for the different values of water and for hydrological variability at the appropriate time scale. Traditionally a water-scarce region, Apulia is now supplied by extra-regional regulated surface resources as well as by a coastal aquifer; altogether, they constitute a multipurpose system with conflicting uses: municipal, irrigation and, to a lesser extent, industrial supply. The system is at present affected by high streamflow variability and by a high level of water losses along the urban distribution networks. In t…
Sensitivity of Regional Water Supply Systems Models to the Level of Skeletonization – A Case Study from Apulia, Italy
AbstractSimulation models supported by state-of-the-art software packages are nowadays available to explore operation rules of regional water supply systems or to select structural alternatives for improving long-term service performances.Given the, sometimes high, complexity of these systems, model calibration can become a lengthy procedure and many runs are necessary before obtaining convincing results. However, even after calibration, depending on system's complexity and the number of time steps investigated, a single run can take up to several minutes, even on state-of-the-art computers, so that simulation time can become a true bottleneck if such models are to be coupled with metaheuri…
Scheletrizzazione di modelli di sistemi di approvvigionamento idrico regionali – Un caso di studio
In questo lavoro viene esaminata la possibilità di ridurre i tempi di calcolo, mediante la "scheletrizzazione" dei modelli, adottando come caso di studio un sistema di approvvigionamento idrico regionale reale, modellato in ambiente AQUATOR. La scheletrizzazione è stata in origine introdotta nel campo dell'ingegneria idraulica al fine di includere nei modelli idraulici delle reti solo le parti dalla rete reale che hanno un significativo impatto sul funzionamento del sistema, riducendo l'onere computazionale ma permettendo comunque di ottenere risultati accurati ed affidabili (Walski et al., 2007; Eggener & Polkowski, 1976; Shamir & Hamberg, 1988a,b). Il principio di base della scheletrizzaz…