Urban Water Supply in CA
Authors
- Jennifer Stokes-Draut – UC Berkeley
- Arpad Horvath – UC Berkeley
Purpose
As aging water infrastructure nears the end of its useful life, now is an ideal time for managers and planners to focus on system resiliency, sustainability, and adaptability to potential long-term supply and demand changes from climate change, population growth, urbanization, and other factors in their decisions. It is critical to proactively and rigorously evaluate potential negative consequences as well as co-benefits associated with innovative water strategies before investments are made as they may affect society for years to come. Data collected about California’s urban water supply has been used to evaluate and project changes to energy demand from thoughout the state. Additional data is being collected to evaluate GHG emissions embedded in water supply and wastewater management. The data can also be used to run scenarios on how conditions might change with urban water innovation.
Stokes-Draut, J., Taptich, M., Kavvada, O., & Horvath, A. (2017). Evaluating the electricity intensity of evolving water supply mixes: the case of California’s water network. Environmental Research Letters, 12(11), 114005.
Description
The data includes water demand and water supply portfolios at five-year intervals between 2010 and 2035 for over 400 urban water utilities in California. Future iterations will project out to 2040 and also consider changes to wastewater treatment and decarbonization of the energy mix to estimate embedded GHGs in the urban water system. A network model of the state’s interconnected water system be generated using an associated Python-based tool
Attributes
Water demand (MG/year), water supply (MG/year) for specific sources, estimates of associated electricity needed to meet potable, non-potable and raw water demand for 400+ urban water utilities in CA for 2010 and projected for 2015 (as of 2010 expectations), 2020, 2025, 2030, and 2035. Similar data generated in 2015 and projecting through 2040, and including wastewater treatment requirements, is pending.
