To meet the ever increasing urban water demand with the finite fresh water availability, water utilities around the world are adopting various structural and non-structural strategies as existing centralised water services are operating at or close to full capacity and are not sufficient to cope with the increase in water demand. Replacing the entire centralised infrastructure is also very difficult within the existing environmental and economic constraints. Water services in such case can be provided through the integration of centralised and decentralised systems such as rainwater, stormwater and recycled wastewater etc., which are referred to as 'Hybrid Water Supply Systems'. The premise of hybrid water supply systems is that the provision of alternative water sources at local scales can extend the capacity of existing centralised water supply infrastructures. However, it is important to recognise the challenges associated with diversification of water sources portfolio such as increased energy intensity, greenhouse emissions (GHG), overall cost, altered flow and composition of wastewater and storm water impacting on the effectiveness and performance of existing infrastructure, community acceptance and liveability. Undertaking the diversification of water sources, implies a detailed understanding and capacity to analyse the performance of the entire water cycle. This session invites papers that deal with systems modelling of urban water cycle and its management as a dynamic system.
Key topics: Urban water cycle modelling, Distributed systems, Alternative water supply sources