An Urban Water Infrastructure Management System Design with Storm Water Intervention for Smart Cities

Abstract

Cauayan City is one of the hubs of economic development and activities in the northern part of the Philippines. Since this is an urban area, there is a tendency for people and businesses to converge, which results in higher water demand. At present, the combined distribution efficiency of its water infrastructures under the management and supervision of the Cauayan City Water District (CCWD) is only 87% or with a combined distribution loss of 10%, which is 1282.50m3 losses per day. This study suggests the necessity to introduce new and innovative water management technologies and systems adapted to climate change to address the city's needs. Problems that need to be addressed include a low-efficiency performance of the existing water infrastructure systems, lack of management tools for more efficient delivery of water services, limited service coverage of the water district due to limited water resources, and depletion and contamination of aquifers and other water sources since shallow aquifer is mainly utilized. Hence, a decisionsupport application based on geographic information systems (GIS) for managing urban water infrastructure with Storm Water intervention is a designed solution to address the needs of the city. The combination of decision support systems (DSS) and geographic information systems (GIS) was presented in this paper to maximize and properly utilize water infrastructure. One of the tools used as DSS is MIKE Operation. This is a complete GIS-integrated modeling tool that enables users to make sound decisions and create future concepts for urban storm water systems - cost-effective and resilient to change. A conceptual framework and relevant methodologies were presented as a guide for the success of the designed new technology.