Professor Stanley Grant, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Water UCI Colloquium Series: Multi-Decadal Evolution of Urban Water Systems
The long-term sustainability of many large cities may hinge on how well they manage urban water demand. Over the past 74 years, water demand in Melbourne (Australia) transitioned between two states: one in which demand scaled linearly with reservoir storage, and another in which demand was constant. Transition between states occurs when extreme events (major droughts and significant infrastructure upgrades) cause reservoir storage to rise above or fall below 200 to 300 kL person-1. These insights provide a theoretical framework for long-term projections of urban water demand and hint at strategies cities can adopt to mitigate freshwater scarcity.
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