Scenario-Based Forecast of Regional Water Demands in Northeastern Illinois
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 138, Issue 2
Abstract
This paper reviews the principles of scenario-based planning and illustrates an application of this approach in a study of a regional water supply and demand in northeastern Illinois. The scenario-based planning has been adopted over the traditional approaches because the scenario approach facilitates an explicit consideration of uncertainty in both supply and demand. An important component of the study was the development of scenario-based forecasts of water demand for major user sectors and geographical subareas within the 11-county region which, includes the city of Chicago and 250 municipalities. The study revealed that the increase in total withdrawals in 2050, under baseline scenario, would be 530 mgd (millions of gallons per day) (36 %) and could reach as high as 949 mgd (64 %) under high demand growth scenario. Thus, meeting these additional demands would require large capital outlays for water infrastructure and would likely have significant impacts on some of the regional sources of water supply, especially groundwater aquifers and local rivers. The experience and results of the study indicate that a scenario-based approach is suitable for supporting stakeholder inputs into long-term management and planning of water supply and demand.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 138 • Issue 2 • March 2012
Pages: 80 - 89
Copyright
© 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 25, 2009
Accepted: Apr 30, 2011
Published online: May 13, 2011
Published in print: Mar 1, 2012
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