The presentation was first shown during the 'Infrastructure Planning' breakout session at the RCUK Water and Cities Showcase which was held on the 30th June 2015.

1. Evaluation of Strategies and Interdependencies
at the National Scale
Water in Future Cities | Infrastructure Planning | RCUK Showcase 2015
Mike Simpson
michael.simpson@ouce.ox.ac.uk

2. • How can we build a complete picture of water resource
infrastructure and its interaction with other infrastructures when
facing deep uncertainties?
• Where will new water infrastructure be
needed to 2050?
• What are the significant interactions with
other infrastructures and resources?
• How can we use a scenarios and strategies
approach to explore a range of future conditions?
Evaluation of Strategies and Interdependencies at the National Scale

3. • We modelled 130 water resource zones/megazones across mainland Great Britain
• We generated transient projections of available water in each zone for each of 11
Future Flows climate scenarios (Prudhomme et at 2012), taking into account
groundwater, river and reservoir sources
• A demand model estimates future demand on the basis of existing per capita
consumption, non-domestic use and leakage coupled with 3 scenarios of population
growth
ModellingWater Systems

4. • A regression model of infrastructure options identifies costs and maximum/minimum
asset sizes for eight management options
• Where shortfalls in supply/demand are identified, best options for new infrastructure
are selected
Infrastructure Decisions
Surfaces of Lifetime/Water
Supply/Cost for five option types
AR – Aquifer Recharge
DE – Desalination
DR – Demand Reduction
ER – Effluent Reuse
LR – Leakage Reduction

5. Central Growth
High Flow Climate Scenario
Central Growth
Central Flow Climate Scenario
Central Growth
Low Flow Climate Scenario
Low Growth
Central Flow Climate Scenario
Central Growth
Central Flow Climate Scenario
High Growth
Central Flow Climate Scenario
Balance (ML/d)
Scenarios

6. Strategies
Minimum
Intervention
Total Cost (£m)
Capacity
Expansion
System
Efficiency
System
Restructuring

7. Interdependency
Tran, M., Byers, E., Blainey, S., Baruah, P., Chaudry, M., Eyre, N., Jenkins,
N., Qadrdan., M., (2015) Quantifying interdependencies:
transport-energy and energy-water, InTran, M., Hall, J., Hickford,
A., Nicholls, R., eds. Planning Infrastructure for the 21st Century:A
Systems-of-Systems Methodology, Cambridge University Press:
Cambridge

8. How can we build a complete picture of water resource infrastructure and its
interaction with other infrastructures when facing deep uncertainties?
• A system-of-systems approach allows us to compare the changing needs for
infrastructure to 2050.
• Building the requirements for other infrastructure types into our model allows the
needs for and requirements of water to be evaluated.
• Uncertainties can be considered using a non-probabilistic scenarios approach.
Where will new water infrastructure be needed for the coming century?
• Scenarios and strategies influence where and how soon water will be required.
• Demand management is a common solution across many scenarios but it does not solve
the problem alone.
• Many scenarios show a shortfall in the South and the West Midlands by 2050.
Outcomes

9. Outcomes
What are the significant interactions with other infrastructures and resources?
• We assess interdependencies across other infrastructures.
• We find that energy demand for water is the most important interdependency.
• A carbon capture and storage future suggests the highest demand for water due to its
continued support for hydrocarbon power.
How can we use a scenarios and strategies approach to explore a range of future
conditions?
• The 11 climate scenarios and 3 demand scenarios allow us to consider possibilities
under these deep uncertainties.
• The strategies are implemented across each infrastructure and interpreted for each
system.
• We will next explore a scaled sensitivity approach to deep uncertainty.

10. FurtherWork
We will incorporate other abilities within the Environmental Change Institute including
pathways-driven approaches and social/environmental factors
• Further refine our representation of water supply
• Move beyond supply/demand to a fully risk based approach
• Incorporate non-technical criteria to better represent the decisions which are
made
• Look at multi-dimensional decision scaling to evaluate sensitivity across changes
in drought autocorrelation/drought intensity/non-domestic demands/leakage
• Consider composite strategies
• Investigate green infrastructure solutions
• Investigate how robustness to drought can vary depending on the units of
management

11. Please contact me for further information or questions -
michael.simpson@ouce.ox.ac.uk
Simpson, M., Ives, M. C., Hall, J., Kilsby, C., (2015),Water supply systems assessment
In Tran, M., Hall, J., Hickford,A., Nicholls, R., eds. Planning Infrastructure for the 21st Century:
A Systems-of-Systems Methodology, Cambridge University Press
Prudhomme, C., Dadson, S., Morris, D.,Williamson, J., Goodsell, G., Crooks, S., Boolee, L., Davies, H., Buys, G., Lafon,T. (2012). Future
flows climate data. NERC Environmental Information Data Centre. http://doi.org/10.5285/bad1514f-119e-44a4-8e1e-442735bb9797
Figures make use of BGS and OS data from EDINA Digimap, which are Ordnance Survey/ British Geological Survey/EDINA supplied
services © Crown Copyright/Database Right 2015.