EWA—A Web-Based Awareness Creation Tool for Change Impact on Water Supply ^†

Abstract

Climate and demographic changes force water utilities to adapt to shifts in both water demand and water availability. The web-based EWA tool supports Austrian water utilities in addressing these problems. Based on water demand and availability forecasts from 2025 to 2055, it encourages robust planning by calculating different performance indicators based on hydraulic models. It provides a platform for assessing water distribution systems, integrating forecast and operational scenarios, and performance indicators. Users can assess long-term impacts, adjust planning approaches, and visualize results through specific graphs. Tutorials help users navigate the tool, while gamified challenges aim at testing problem-solving skills and motivating users to improve their performance and raise awareness. The EWA tool facilitates resilient and forward-looking planning, which is critical to adapting to climate change and demographic shifts while ensuring sustainable water resource management.

1. Introduction

The impact of climate change and demographic trends on future water supply is a growing concern for water utilities worldwide [1,2]. As longer heat waves and droughts become more frequent, changes in consumer behavior are inevitable. In recent years, more private swimming pools have been built, and garden irrigation systems have been installed, which were previously unnecessary in Austria due to sufficient summer precipitation [3,4,5]. These behavioral changes, coupled with population growth, will lead to a change in water demand, particularly affecting the water supply systems of smaller communities.

Addressing these challenges sustainably requires proactive measures, including consideration of demographic trends and water demand forecasts based on different climate change scenarios. In order to ensure a reliable and sufficient water supply in the long term, it is crucial to take into account changes in settlement patterns and a possible expansion of the supply areas.

To raise awareness of these pressing issues and explore necessary actions in an engaging way, the EWA research project [6] developed a web-based tool with gamification elements for planning water distribution systems. The tool combines elements of hydraulic modeling with water demand forecasting models, providing users with a dynamic platform to navigate through future water supply scenarios. In this paper, we provide an overview of the developed EWA tool, highlighting its features and potential contributions to addressing the challenges posed by climate change and demographic shifts in water management.

2. Materials and Methods

The overall goal of the EWA project was to develop a web-based decision support tool to assist water utilities in strategic resource and network planning, considering the diverse impacts of climate change and demographic trends. An important aspect of the tool is its ability to assess the robustness of planning alternatives by calculating various performance indicators.

These indicators were developed in participatory workshops with stakeholders. The performance indicators were then weighted using an Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) [7]. The AHP was carried out using the AHP online tool [8]. This gave stakeholders the opportunity to help determine which performance indicators would be integrated into the tool. The results of the Wasserschatz study [4] were integrated to incorporate water demand forecasts. This study provides Austria-wide future water demand forecasts up to 2050, depending on climate change and population development. Two different scenarios were developed in the study, one favorable and one unfavorable. The favorable scenario has a low intensity of use, and the unfavorable scenario has a high intensity of use. Furthermore, future water availability was also evaluated for both scenarios within the study.

To combine these findings with hydraulic models, EPANET 2.2 [9] and OOPNET [10], a Python-based programming interface for EPANET, were employed. The simulations use pressure-driven analysis to simulate pressure-deficient conditions more accurately. The tool itself was implemented as a web application to easily update the UI itself and the underlying forecasts for all users. Its architecture consists of a front-end client and a set of back-end services (e.g., databases, computing clusters). The front-end client, built as a single-page application using TypeScript and React, was developed with a strong focus on usability.

3. Results and Discussion

The result of our efforts is a web-based platform with gamification elements tailored explicitly for water utilities looking to future-proof their distribution systems. Within this platform, users can either upload and modify existing systems or create entirely new systems, facilitated by a map-based graphical user interface (Figure 1). Like existing hydraulic modeling tools, users can interact with the model by adding, removing, and changing model components such as pipes, nodes, and pumps.

A key feature of the platform is its emphasis on long-term planning capabilities, supported by a timeline divided into 10-year intervals covering the period from 2025 to 2055. Users can navigate between these time segments, allowing them to track the propagation of model changes over time. For example, if a new water resource is introduced in 2045, it will be available in subsequent years but will be absent if the user switches back to an earlier timeframe.

In addition, estimated increases or decreases in water demand in a specific region for a certain timeframe are allocated to nodal demands in an aliquot manner based on the nodes’ original base demands. To incorporate water availability changes, springs and wells are modeled as nodes with a negative base demand. Again, these base demands are adapted based on the forecasted changes in water availability. Users can also add and switch between different operational scenarios, allowing them to freely model various system states, especially fault conditions like pump failures.

The different future scenarios, timeframes, and operational scenarios are combined to create a set of hydraulic models. Each model is then evaluated using performance indicators. These indicators include critical metrics such as security of supply, water demand coverage, costs, and resource conservation. Users can visualize the evolution of these indicators over time through graphs and data overlays on the map. Users can save their model at any point and try different approaches while modeling. These planning alternatives can then be compared with each other to facilitate informed decision-making.

In addition to classic hydraulic modeling functionality, we introduced a dynamic challenge system. Each challenge consists of several sets of tasks that must be completed sequentially by the user. Each task set is accompanied by descriptive text, which is an invaluable tool for explaining tool functionality, hydraulic modeling concepts, task nuances, or, alternatively, telling interactive stories. Upon completing a challenge, users receive detailed feedback, including optional messages and performance statistics. These gamification elements were added to the tool to improve user onboarding and stimulate the users’ intrinsic motivation while using the tool.

In the web tool, users can freely create or edit challenges and use this feature to raise awareness or demonstrate certain design considerations. For example, a challenge could be to select the optimum location for a large consumer to illustrate the impact of different design decisions.

4. Conclusions

In view of the complex interplay between climate change and demographic change, water supply companies are forced to take strategic, forward-looking, and resilient planning initiatives. To effectively address these challenges, the innovative web-based modeling tool EWA was developed. This versatile tool enables water utilities to systematically explore and develop planning alternatives in a dynamic virtual environment. The EWA tool includes a water demand forecast that considers various climate projections and the effects of demographic trends. By incorporating these dynamic variables, the EWA tool enables stakeholders to model and analyze different scenarios to find optimal solutions tailored to the specific needs of the system. By visualizing potential bottlenecks and challenges arising from unsustainable practices, the tool underscores the importance of environmentally sound approaches to water management. The continuous improvement of the tool’s user interface ensures accessibility and usability and facilitates seamless interaction for stakeholders with different levels of knowledge. In addition, stakeholder feedback has shown that there is particular interest in the challenge feature, which can simulate real-life scenarios to improve user engagement and decision-making.