Author(s): Nicolosi Vincenzo Marco; Cancelliere Antonino; Rossi Giuseppe
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: Risk; Drought; Water supply system management
Abstract: Drought represents the greatest natural threat in terms of affected people and one of more relevant disasters due to its economic and environmental impacts. The occurrence of severe droughts all around the world on last decades has led to a growing awareness on the necessity of managing water supply systems taking into account the probability of occurrence of drought events in order to mitigate their effects on economy, society and environment. Although some efforts have been done to link drought hydrometeorological indicators with actual water supply systems management, still the use of the concept of risk of shortage due to drought as indicator to trigger pre-defined set of mitigation measures needs further investigations. The objective of the paper is to present a methodology for the short term drought management of a water supply system, based on the activation of mitigation measures that are triggered on the basis of risk of drought as indicator. Risk has been defined according two different criteria, namely probability of water shortages and related expected damage. Furthermore the methodology is able to take into account risk evaluated on multiple conflicting uses considering several management configuration of the system represented through a simple colour code. The advantage of this tool for improving operation of a water supply system mainly consists on its ability to highlight the risk evaluated on each water use but giving a simple and unambiguous help to decision makers. The proposed methodology has been tested on a case study presenting a high drought vulnerability and two conflicting uses.
Year: 2007