Advancing the Stormwater Management Model for the Digital Water Transformation
Citation:
Buahin, C. Advancing the Stormwater Management Model for the Digital Water Transformation. 57th International Conference on Water Management Modeling, TorontoC, February 28 - March 01, 2024.
Impact/Purpose:
This product represents a presentation that I will be giving as a keynote speaker at the upcoming 57th International Conference for Stormwater Management Modeling in Ontario, Canada. It will provide an opportunity to share with key stakeholders some of the advancements implementing/plan to implement for the Stormwater Management Model (SWMM) to better support the development of digital twins for smart/intelligent water systems applications. The forum will provide an opportunity to interact with stakeholders from the consulting world, third party software vendors, academia, and utilities and solicit their feedback and recommendations on the proposed directions for SWMM.
Description:
While SWMM has arguably played a pivotal role in pollution control in collection systems since its introduction, traditional applications using the model have been relatively static. They typically involve calibrating and validating SWMM models with data collected and curated for selected historical periods and evaluating model response to design, typical year, or future precipitation/climate projection scenarios. These models are then used to inform the design and sizing of gray and green infrastructure and evaluation of control/mitigation strategies for flooding, combined and sanitary sewer overflows, and water quality impairment events. In contrast, an emerging smart/intelligent collection systems application paradigm is being envisioned, where a virtual representation of the collection system – digital twin – developed by fusing near realtime data from sensors with models and data/AI driven algorithms is used as an experimental framework for operational wayfinding. Information gleaned from this system can be used to coordinate and optimize the modulation of controllable assets (e.g., actuatable gates, weirs, pumps, etc.) autonomously or with a human-in-the loop towards achieving short- and long-term control/operational objectives. SWMM can serve as the basis for this framework and is indeed being used in many cases for developing these digital twins. In this presentation, I will explore advancements we are implementing and those being considered for future implementation to support this application area for the consideration and discussion from the modeling community at this conference. With these advancements, we hope to lower the threshold for entry for the small to medium sized collection system utilities that are embarking on their digital transformation journeys.