Quantifying Uncertainty in Urban Water Demand Projections

Water demand projections are essential for urban water supply planning. Yet, long-term demand projections are highly overestimated and uncertain, potentially warranting unneeded costly infrastructure, which may lead to irreversible environmental impacts and exacerbate water affordability outcomes. While demand forecasting methods have improved, uncertainty in long-term demand projections remains poorly understood. Our study develops a novel uncertainty characterization framework that can quantify and partition uncertainty in long-term urban water demand projections across planning-relevant spatial scales. Results show that demand uncertainty at the household-, neighborhood-, and city-scale is dominated by human behavior, population growth and housing diversity, and economic trends and policy action, respectively. Our analysis offers new insights into the magnitude and sources of urban water demand uncertainty, informing utility decisions about urban water supply planning, infrastructure investments, and conservation policies.

Speaker: Aniket Verma, Stanford University