The Economics of Groundwater Replenishment for Reliable Urban Water Supply

Water

Lei Gao¹  Jeffery D. Connor² 

[1] CSIRO Land and Water, Private Mail Bag 2, Glen Osmond, SA 5064, Australia; E-Mail:;CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, Private Mail Bag 2, Glen Osmond, SA 5064, Australia; E-Mail:

关键词: water allocation;    groundwater;    drought;    risk assessment;    economics;    Markov switching model;    Monte Carlo;   

DOI  :  10.3390/w6061662

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

This paper explores the potential economic benefits of water banking in aquifers to meet drought and emergency supplies for cities where the population is growing and changing climate has reduced the availability of water. A simplified case study based on the city of Perth, Australia was used to estimate the savings that could be achieved by water banking. Scenarios for investment in seawater desalination plants and groundwater replenishment were considered over a 20 year period of growing demand, using a Monte Carlo analysis that embedded the Markov model. An optimisation algorithm identified the minimum cost solutions that met specified criteria for supply reliability. The impact of depreciation of recharge credits was explored. The results revealed savings of more than A$1B (~US$1B) or 37% to 33% of supply augmentation costs by including water banking in aquifers for 95% and 99.5% reliability of supply respectively. When the hypothetically assumed recharge credit depreciation rate was increased from 1% p.a. to 10% p.a. savings were still 33% to 31% for the same reliabilities. These preliminary results show that water banking in aquifers has potential to offer a highly attractive solution for efficiently increasing the security of urban water supplies where aquifers are suitable.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.