Optimal Strategies for the Financially Sustainable Management of Watershed Resources and Water Distribution Infrastructure

申请人建议通过整合两个主要研究要素，为实施安大略环境部（莫伊）财政上可持续的饮用水和废水系统立法所需的知识库做出贡献。 首先，一个完全集成的水文模拟模型将得到增强，以量化地下水和地表水流量与代表市政供水和废水分配系统的工程结构之间的相互作用，这种相互作用是由于水管泄漏以及卫生和暴雨下水道而发生的，并影响流域规模水资源的数量和质量，特别强调营养负荷。第二，将开发一个市政财务控制模型，以模拟替代管理战略的影响，以平衡规定的水费收入乘以饮用水消费量和废水排放量，以及为维持供水和废水分配系统状况的基本建设工程和运营及维护活动提供资金所需的费用。最佳管理策略寻求最小化总成本与可持续的资本储备，并同时采取行动，以尽量减少养分负荷的分水岭。申请人的研究成果是开发软件，将拟议的水文和财务控制模型整合到一个单一的计算框架中，使市政当局能够遵守莫伊的财政可持续饮用水和废水系统立法。特别是，该软件将明确允许市政当局将水文和财政不确定性纳入框架，并明确定价的风险，一个给定的管理战略可能无法满足设计目标所定义的未来营养负荷或自筹资金的条件。

The applicant proposes to contribute to the knowledge-base required to implement Ontario Ministry of the Environment's (MOE) financially sustainable drinking-water and wastewater system legislation by integrating two major research elements. First, a fully-integrated hydrologic simulation model will be enhanced to quantify the interaction of groundwater and surface water flow with engineered structures representing the water and wastewater distribution system within the municipality, where this interaction occurs due to leaking water mains as well as sanitary and storm sewers, and impacts the quantity and quality of the watershed-scale water resource with a specific emphasis on nutrient loading. Second, a municipal financial control model will be developed to simulate the impact of alternative management strategies for balancing the revenue from prescribed water rates multiplied against the amount of potable water consumed as well as wastewater discharged, with expenses needed to fund capital works and operation and maintenance activities to maintain the condition of the water and wastewater distribution system. The optimal management strategy seeks to minimize total costs with a sustainable capital reserve, and simultaneously acts to minimize nutrient loading on the watershed. The outcome of the applicant's research is to develop software that integrates the proposed hydrologic and financial control models into a single computation framework, and enables municipalities to comply with the MOE's financially sustainable drinking-water and wastewater system legislation. In particular, the software will explicitly allow municipalities to integrate hydrologic and financial uncertainty into the framework, and explicitly price the risk that a given management strategy may fail to meet design objectives defined by either future nutrient loading or self-financing conditions.