Holistic Analysis of the Urban Water Systems in Greater Cincinnati Region
Citation:
Ma, Cissy, J. Cashdollar, J. Garland, X. Xue, S. Arden, M. Brown, S. Cashman, A. Gaglione, J. Mosley, AND L. Weiss. Holistic Analysis of the Urban Water Systems in Greater Cincinnati Region. Presented at AWWA's 2018 Sustainable Water Management Conference, Seattle, WA, March 25 - 28, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
Holistic Approaches Towards Sustainable Water Systems
Description:
Urban water and wastewater systems with two utilities in Greater Cincinnati region were evaluated as a case study to elucidates a bigger picture of a typical centralized urban water system. Two different integrated assessment metrics were used to analyze the same system. LCA and LCC revealed the life cycle environmental and economic impacts and energy, resource and cost distributions in such system while providing insights for more sustainable holistic system managements. Thermodynamically based emergy accounting provided a better understanding of resource expenditure distributions within the system. Results in total are used to suggest alternative strategies that can alleviate some of the identified environmental burdens and economic costs.