Water Demand Estimation Using Land Use and Population Growth Information: A Case Study in Salt Lake County, Utah

Water shortages cause deterioration of standard of living and pose threats to overall societal prosperity. Water stress is manifested when the demand for water exceeds the available resources or when poor water quality restricts the water use. Water scarcity and the growing demand for good quality water in many urban areas have initiated efforts to develop optimal water resources management measures. Assessment of available water resources and the prediction of water demand are essential for proper water resources planning and management. In classical water demand estimations, population growth is the primary decision variable. In this work, we propose a methodology to predict the water demand in a major metropolitan area using both population growth and land use change estimations. The methodology is demonstrated for the fast growing Salt Lake County, Utah. The results showed that the water demand estimated using the proposed methodology is higher than those predicted by using the population growth models only. This observation suggests that land use changes may play an important role in water resources planning and management.