Reliability, resilience, and vulnerability are the most commonly used performance criteria for water supply planning and management. However, there is lack of understanding of the relationships among these criteria. This paper aims to reveal the relationships among them by using emerging many-objective visual analytics. To measure different aspects of water supply systems in terms of reliability, resilience, and vulnerability, a suite of five metrics are considered: water supply reliability, mean and maximum deficits of water supply, and mean and maximum durations of water shortage. Results obtained in this study reveal that both conflicting and synergetic relationships exist between reliability and resilience (mean deficit of water supply), and between vulnerability (mean duration of water shortage) and resilience (mean deficit of water supply) in different regions of the objective space. A more complete picture of the relationships among reliability, resilience, and vulnerability than reported in the prior literature is provided in this paper thanks to the use of many-objective analysis. This study provides an in-depth understanding of the relationships and can help decision makers make an informed decision in the management of water resources systems.

Vulnerability analysis of urban drainage networks plays an important role in urban flood management. This study analyzes and compares the vulnerability of tree and loop systems under various rainfall events to structural failure represented by pipe blockage. Different pipe blockage scenarios, in which one of the pipes in an urban drainage network is assumed to be blocked individually, are constructed and their impacts on the network are simulated under different storm events. Furthermore, a vulnerability index is defined to measure the vulnerability of the drainage systems before and after the implementation of adaptation measures. The results obtained indicate that the tree systems have a relatively larger proportion of critical hydraulic pipes than the loop systems, thus the vulnerability of tree systems is substantially greater than that of the loop systems. Furthermore, the vulnerability index of tree systems is reduced after they are converted into a loop system with the implementation of adaptation measures. This paper provides an insight into the differences in the vulnerability of tree and loop systems, and provides more evidence for development of adaptation measures (e.g., tanks) to reduce urban flooding.

Inflow and infiltration (I/I) is a common problem in sanitary sewer systems. The I/I rate is also considered to be an important indicator of the operational and structural condition of the sewer system. Situation awareness in sanitary sewer systems requires accurate wastewater-flow information at a fine spatiotemporal scale. This study aims to develop artificial intelligence (AI)-based models (adaptive neurofuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and multilayer perceptron neural network (MLPNN)) and to compare their performance for identifying the potential inflow and infiltration of the sanitary sewer subcatchment of two pumping stations. We tested the performance of these AI models by using data gathered from two pumping stations through a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system. As a result, these two AI models produced similar inflow and infiltration patterns—both subcatchments experienced inflow and infiltration. On the other hand, the ANFIS had overall higher performance than that of the MLPNN model for modelling the I/I situation for the catchments. The results of the research can be used to support spatial decision making in sewer system maintenance.

Transboundary river cooperation provides an effective pathway to maintain regional security and sustainable development; however, its implementation is a pressing and prominent concern due to lack of appropriate compensation measures and effective incentive strategies. Here we develop a dual water-electricity cooperation (DWEC) framework that combines water and electricity trading to meet the often-conflicting demands of participating countries. The results from the Lancang-Mekong River Basin reveal that substantial benefits in both economic and social aspects can be achieved through coupling regional water and electricity trades. Economic benefits can be obtained by expanding cooperation space and thereby greatly improving the willingness of countries to participate in basin-wide cooperation. Electricity trading plays a key role in loss compensation for water exporters, ensuring no loss for any party and maximizing basin-wide benefits. Furthermore, the DWEC improves regional water use equality, especially in water shortage periods when there is severe competition among water users. The proposed cooperation framework provides a viable way to implement cooperation in transboundary river basins.

The construction of water transfer projects can have a considerable impact on the operation of the receiving reservoir. This study investigates the change of the objective trade-offs in multiobjective reservoir operation problems due to the introduction of water transfer using a case study of the east-to-west water transfer project in northeastern China. Two optimization cases are constructed to analyze the trade-off changes: a base case with no water transfer that considers four objectives, i.e., minimizing industry water shortage, minimizing agriculture water shortage, minimizing water spillage, and maximizing ecological satisfaction; and a future postconstruction case that considers an additional objective to minimize the amount of water transferred. Results obtained from the case study show increasing water transfer substantially reduces the intensity of the competition between industrial and agricultural water shortages, and the objective trade-offs among water spillage, ecological satisfaction, and agricultural shortage index are substantially changed because of water transfer. In addition, the amount of water transferred with high efficiency regarding each objective is identified, and three solutions of different orders of magnitude in diverted water have been recommended for informed decision making considering efficiency and benefit. This study implies that many-objective visual analytics can be used to determine the optimal amount of water transferred in terms of water efficiency revealed in different objective trade-off spaces.