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Water–Energy Nexus in Urban Infrastructure Systems
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Water–Energy Nexus in Urban Infrastructure Systems

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Water Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 April 2023) | Viewed by 4215

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Husnain Haider

E-Mail Website1 Website2
Guest Editor
Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, Qassim University, Buraydah 52571, Saudi Arabia
Interests: water supply systems; customer satisfaction; infrastructure asset management; water quality modeling; sustainability; life cycle thinking; risk management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Gyan Chhipi Shrestha

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Applied Science, School of Engineering, The University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus, 1137 Alumni Avenue, Kelowna, BC V1V 1V7 Canada
Interests: sustainable water supply; human health and ecological risk assessment; climate change impacts; source water protection; water–energy nexus; environmental modelling; decision analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In urban areas, only an efficient and reliable water infrastructure can ensure the provision of safe drinking water and sanitation facilities. Urban water infrastructure primarily consists of the water supply system, sewerage system, and stormwater drainage system. All these systems utilize a large amount of energy for numerous operations, including raw water extraction, water and wastewater treatment, water transmission and distribution, and stormwater management. Population growth and urbanization trends are increasing the burden on existing urban infrastructure. Aging may increase the energy requirements by reducing the efficiency and reliability of various components, such as leaking pipes and obsolete pumps. With growing awareness and stringency of regulations about carbon emissions, optimizing the energy utilization by the urban water infrastructure systems has become a serious challenge for both policy-makers and technical professionals.

Most of the existing literature covers the topic in the context of water supply systems, while its application in wastewater and stormwater systems has been relatively less addressed. Energy optimization in large urban infrastructure systems also needs further attention, as most of the past studies evaluated smaller systems or hypothetical scenarios. Most of the related work was conducted in developed countries operating continuous water supply systems, while the evaluation of intermittent supply operation in developing countries and arid regions might come up with new and interesting findings. Although greywater recycling with low-cost treatment at the point of generation can conserve water resources, it can impact the wastewater-to-energy option. Emerging concepts of sponge cities can certainly recharge groundwater, but the reduced runoff could impact hydropower generation. 

There are several other questions that need to be answered. This Special issue is an effort towards addressing these questions and bridging research gaps.

Dr. Husnain Haider
Dr. Gyan Chhipi Shrestha
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • water–energy nexus
  • water supply system
  • wastewater to energy

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 2015 KiB  
Article
Water–Energy–Carbon Nexus Analysis for Water Supply Systems with Brackish Groundwater Sources in Arid Regions
by Mohammad T. Alresheedi, Husnain Haider, Md. Shafiquzzaman, Saleem S. AlSaleem and Majed Alinizzi
Sustainability 2022, 14(9), 5106; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14095106 - 23 Apr 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2123
Abstract
Limited knowledge on the water–energy–carbon nexus of water supply systems (WSSs) with brackish groundwater sources in arid regions exists to date. In addition, the large amount of fossil-fuel energy utilized by treatment processes generating a significant amount of carbon emissions remains a challenge [...] Read more.
Limited knowledge on the water–energy–carbon nexus of water supply systems (WSSs) with brackish groundwater sources in arid regions exists to date. In addition, the large amount of fossil-fuel energy utilized by treatment processes generating a significant amount of carbon emissions remains a challenge for the municipalities in Saudi Arabia to meet long-term sustainability goals. To achieve Saudi Arabia Vision 2030’s target of sustainable cities with reduced CO2 emissions, the present study aimed to analyse the water–energy–carbon nexus for WSSs and propose mitigation measures for reducing energy and carbon footprints from both the water management and treatment technologies perspectives. The detailed energy consumption data for three main components (source extraction, water treatment, and conveyance and distribution) of the main WSS, serving the 600,000 population of Buraydah City (Qassim, Saudi Arabia), was obtained from the concerned municipality. The city water treatment plant removes naturally occurring iron, TDS, and radionuclides in the source water with the help of ion detention, oxidation, sand filtration, ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis, chlorination, and backwash water management. The study found that the treatment facility consumes around half of the total system’s energy (131,122 kWh/day); while, with deep confined aquifer (>600 m) and an average water loss of 8%, conveyance and distribution (34%) and source extraction (18%) are consistent with the reported literature. With oil-driven energy, carbon emissions were found to be 10.26, 27.18, and 19.72 million tons CO2 eq/year for source extraction, water treatment, and conveyance and distribution, respectively. The reverse osmosis process, with higher energy consumption—1.1 kWh/m3 of treated water—than the global average, consumes most (88%) of the treatment plant’s energy and thus needs effective energy management practices. Moving to renewable (solar and wind-driven) sources, subject to a detailed life cycle analysis, can achieve significant energy and associated carbon emission reductions. To sustainably meet the water demand of the growing population in arid regions, the study also suggests raising the awareness of the public about how water conservation can control CO2 emissions, proactive maintenance of aging infrastructure, and increasing rainwater and treated wastewater reuse, to enhance the operational life of existing treatment facilities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water–Energy Nexus in Urban Infrastructure Systems)
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29 pages, 5830 KiB  
Article
Earthquake Resilience Framework for a Stormwater Pipe Infrastructure System Integrating the Best Worst Method and Dempster–Shafer Theory
by Maryam Garshasbi and Golam Kabir
Sustainability 2022, 14(5), 2710; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14052710 - 25 Feb 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1498
Abstract
Stormwater pipe infrastructure is a fundamental requirement of any nation, but pipes can be damaged in natural disasters. Consequently, evaluating the resilience of stormwater infrastructure to earthquake damage is an essential duty for any city because it outlines the capability to recover from [...] Read more.
Stormwater pipe infrastructure is a fundamental requirement of any nation, but pipes can be damaged in natural disasters. Consequently, evaluating the resilience of stormwater infrastructure to earthquake damage is an essential duty for any city because it outlines the capability to recover from a disaster after the event. The resilience quantification process needs various data types from various sources, and uncertainty and partial data may be included. This study recommends a resilience assessment framework for stormwater pipe infrastructure facing earthquake hazards using Hierarchical Evidential Reasoning (HER) on the basis of the Dempster–Shafer (D-S) theory. The developed framework was implemented in the City of Regina, SK, Canada to quantify the resilience of the stormwater pipe infrastructure. First, various resilience factors were identified from the literature. Based on experts’ judgment, the weight of these factors was determined using the Best Worst Method (BWM). After that, the resilience was determined using the D–S theory. Finally, sensitivity analysis was conducted to examine the sensitivity of the factors of the recommended hierarchical stormwater infrastructure resilience model. The recommended earthquake resilience assessment model produced satisfying outcomes, which showed the condition state of resilience with the degree of uncertainty. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water–Energy Nexus in Urban Infrastructure Systems)
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