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Sustainability Assessment of Urban Water Supply and Distribution Systems: A

Case Study

Conference Paper · May 2011

DOI: 10.13140/2.1.4104.0323

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 Sustainability Assessment of Urban Water Supply and
Distribution Systems: A Case Study

Seyed Sajed Motevallian1, Massoud Tabesh2, Abbas Roozbahani3

1- Msc Student, School of Civil Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
2- Associate Professor, Center of Excellence for Engineering and Management of Infrastructures,
School of Civil Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
3- Phd Candidate, School of Civil Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Email: Sajed.motevallian@yahoo.com

Abstract

Despite some shortcomings in their performance, urban water supply and distribution systems have provided
urban dwellers with water for years; nevertheless, there have been widespread criticisms of these systems
functionality since the introduction of sustainable development concept in the late 1980s. Nowadays, many
experts believe that not only should these systems be evaluated based on their ability to provide conventional
services in short term horizons, but also they should be assessed based on their ability to preserve water
resources for the future generations in long-term perspectives. Most of the decisions made about the
selection of urban water development projects in Iran are merely based on economic criteria: therefore,
environmental and social criteria don’t have significant roles in decision making. Hence, there is a need to
apply methods which can assess the urban water development projects based on the main objectives of
sustainable development such as preserving the balance of water supply and demand, preventing permanent
environmental damages and satisfying the consumers’ needs (especially the future generations’ needs). In
this paper, different components of an implemented sustainability assessment study for a given urban water
supply and distribution system in Tehran, the capital city of Iran are introduced. The proposed criteria and
indicators cover the economic, social, environmental and technical aspects of sustainability. Furthermore,
Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) method is selected as the sustainability assessment method which
is a conventional Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) method. The objectives of the case study are the
assessment of relative sustainability scores of different urban water supply and distribution systems
alternatives and ranking them. The alternatives are proposed based on three different approaches comprising
the modification of water tariffs, water quality cascading and water reuse. The preliminary results of the case
study are also presented in this work. In the forthcoming research works, the final results of the case study
will be published.

Keywords: Urban water supply and distribution systems, Sustainability assessment, Water reuse, The
modification of water tariffs, Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP)
1. Introduction

Despite some shortcomings in their performance, urban water supply and distribution
systems have provided urban dwellers with water for years; nevertheless, there have been
widespread criticisms of these systems functionality since the introduction of sustainable
development concept in the late 1980’s. Nowadays, many experts believe that not only
should these systems be evaluated based on their ability to provide conventional services in
short term horizons, but also they should be assessed based on their ability to preserve
water resources for the future generations in long-term perspectives.
The implementation of urban water development projects in Iran carries enormous costs
annually. Most of the decisions made about the selection of these projects in Iran are
merely based on economic criteria; therefore, environmental and social criteria don’t have
significant roles in decision making. In this manner, most of these projects will not be able
to satisfy the main objectives of sustainable development in the urban water sector. Some
of these objectives are summarized as below:
 Access to safe, adequate and healthy water for satisfying potable and non-potable
needs of consumers at all times.
 To achieve a reasonable and lasting balance between water supply and demand.
 Reducing the adverse impacts caused by the system in order to prevent permanent
environmental damages.
 Water recycling and reuse and water quality cascading.
 Preserving the social and cultural values of society and encouraging the
consumers to show responsible behavior.
 Optimizing the financial resources allocation with the aim of making water
services profitable and strengthening the household affordability
Above discussions clarify that there is a need to apply methods such as sustainability
assessment methods which can assess the urban water development projects in Iran with
regard to the main objectives of sustainable development.
Sustainability assessment can be defined as the measurement process of a system’s
performance with regard to the ability of that system in satisfying the objectives of
sustainable development. Some of conventional methods applied for sustainability
assessment of urban water systems and examples of their applications are presented in
Table 1.

Table 1. Conventional methods applied for sustainability assessment of urban water systems
No. Method Example of application
1 Material Flow Analysis (MFA) Jeppsson and Hellström (2002)

2 Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) Tillman et al. (1998)

4 Life-Cycle Costing (LCC) Rebitzer et al. (2003)

5 Multi-Criteria Decision-Making methods (MCDMs) Hiessl et al. (2001)

In this paper, different components of an implemented sustainability assessment study for a

given urban water supply and distribution system in Tehran, the capital city of Iran are
introduced. The proposed criteria and indicators cover the economic, social, environmental

2
and technical aspects of sustainability. Furthermore, Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process
(FAHP) is selected as the sustainability assessment method which is a sort of Multi-
Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) method. MCDMs are based on the rational and
mathematical principles and developed to facilitate the process of decision-making in real
situations. These methods were previously used to assess the sustainability of urban water
systems. Hiessl et al. (2001) applied Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to assess the
sustainability of future scenarios of urban water systems for two small towns in Germany.
Lundie et al. (2008) proposed a methodology for evaluating the overall sustainability of
urban water systems and applied it in a hypothetical case study in Australia. They used a
simple scoring method to rank the alternatives.

2. Methodology

2.1. Goal and Scope Definition

The goals of this case study are the assessment of relative sustainability scores of different
urban water supply and distribution systems alternatives and ranking them. The word
“distribution” expressed in the phrase “urban water supply and distribution systems”
emphasizes that designing the new alternatives involve making changes in the water
distribution patterns in addition to searching for new water resources.
The scope comprises local scope and time scope. Local scope includes a part of an urban
water system of a fictive region. This area is called “Small town”. Although some
characteristics of this region is hypothetical, the consumption data of consumers are
realistic and obtained from Tehran City’s Water and Wastewater Company (TWWC) for a
certain district in east of Tehran. Major water consumers of “Small town” comprise
domestic consumers, non-domestic consumers and urban public parks. It is assumed that in
the current situation in “Small town”, water is distributed through a conventional single-
pipe distribution system for satisfying all kind of needs (i.e. potable and non-potable
needs) and wastewater is collected by means of the pipeline network. Furthermore, there
are some water wells in “Small town” which belongs to the municipality and are used for
irrigation in the urban public parks. Municipality also uses the piped water to supply the
rest of water required for irrigation in the urban public parks.
Time scope of the case study is 15 years (i.e. 2010 – 2025). The main reason for selecting
this time scope is that based on the report of International Water Management Institute
(IWMI), Iran will be on of countries which will suffer from physical water scarcity in
2025. Physical water scarcity refers to the situation that there is not enough water to meet
all demands, including that needed for ecosystems to function effectively (Penning de
vries, 2003). This is an undesirable situation for the future generations and it should be
considered in the planning horizons. Hence, the current time scope is selected.

2.2. Determining the Decision-Makers (DMs)

Decision-Makers (DMs) are who can intervene in the different stages of sustainability
assessment process. DMs should be selected from the stakeholders of the system.
Stakeholder is an individual, a group or an organization affected by a decision or can affect
on a decision, directly or indirectly (Motevallian and Tabesh, 2011). In this case study, the
main stakeholders (or DMs) are as below:
 Water provisioner (Tehran City’s Water and Wastewater Company)

3
  Water consumers (including the representative of the future generations)
 Environmental protection agency
 Municipality

2.3. Determining the Alternatives

Table 2 is presented the proposed alternatives (A i ) in the case study.

Table 2. The proposed sustainable urban water supply and distribution systems alternatives (A i ) in the
case study
No. Description
Keeping the current situation of urban water supply and distribution system without changes in
A1 piped water tariffs or the structure of the system.

Keeping the current structure of urban water supply and distribution system in addition to
increasing the piped water tariffs gradually in the first five years of time scope for all
A2 consumers. The piped water tariffs will be equal to real costs of the services from fifth year to
fifteenth year.

Increasing the piped water tariffs gradually in the first five years of time scope for all
consumers. The piped water tariffs will be equal to real costs of the services from fifth year to
fifteenth year. After the fifth years, some insignificant non-potable consumptions (such as water
for gardening and flushing) of domestic consumers will be supplied by means of treated water
A3
obtained from domestic greywater treatment systems instead piped water. The structure of
urban water supply and distribution system will remain unchanged for non-domestic consumers
and urban public parks.

Increasing the piped water tariffs gradually in the first five years of time scope for all
consumers. The piped water tariffs will be equal to real costs of the services from fifth year to
fifteenth year. After the fifth years, non-potable consumptions of non-domestic consumers will
be supplied by allocating the water of wells to them. Also, the water required for irrigation in
A4
the urban public parks will be supplied by treated wastewater which comes from the outside of
“Small town”. The structure of urban water supply and distribution system will remain
unchanged for domestic consumers.

Implementing the alternative 3 and 4 simultaneously.

A5
Increasing the piped water tariffs gradually in the first five years of time scope for all
consumers. The piped water tariffs will be equal to real costs of the services from fifth year to
fifteenth year. After the fifth years, a new water distribution system will operate under the
supervision of municipality which distributes the water of wells to domestic and non-domestic
A6
consumers for satisfying their insignificant non-potable consumptions. The water required for
irrigation in the urban public parks will be also supplied by the water wells. The tariffs of new
system will be equal to real costs of the services.

To design the alternatives, both demand-side and supply-side approaches are applied. The
alternatives are designed based on three different approaches comprising the modification
of water tariffs, water quality cascading and water reuse. The first approach is selected
with regard to the approved law of “modifying the subsides system” which is legislated by
Parliament of Islamic Republic of Iran and obligates the Iranian government to gradually
increase the water tariffs in a manner that the water tariffs will be equal to the real costs of
the services by the end of fifth development plan of Iran (Icana, 2009). The second
approach is water quality cascading. In this approach, efforts are made in order to establish

4
 a reasonable relation between the quality of consumed water and the type of consumption
in a manner that water resources with higher quality (i.e. surface water resources) are used
for more important consumptions (i.e. potable consumptions) and water resources with
lower quality (i.e. treated greywater) are used for less important consumptions (i.e.
insignificant non-potable consumptions). The third approach is water reuse and
reclamation. In this approach, treated wastewater and greywater are considered as new
water resources for satisfying the insignificant non-potable consumptions such as water for
gardening and flushing (In this case study, greywater is defined as all kind of domestic
wastewater except the toilet’s wastewater which contains human excreta). It is assumed
that the aforementioned approaches will be implemented step by step. The first approach
will be implemented in first five years, and then the other approaches will be implemented
after the fifth year. Furthermore, it is assumed that consumers will receive cash subsidies
from Iranian government in all cases (except Alternative 1) to pay the water tariffs.

2.4. Determining the Criteria and Indicators

Sustainability criteria and indicators are used to quantify the different aspects of
sustainability and assess the trend of sustainable development. The proposed sustainability
criteria and indicators in the case study are illustrated in Figure 1. Furthermore, short
descriptions for each sustainability indicator (I i ) are provided. Except for the indicator
named “Decrease in piped water consumption” which is quantified directly, all indicators
are qualitative and the 1 to 9 comparison scale of Saati (1980) is applied to quantify them.

Sustainability

Social Economic Environmental Technical

Benefits The Total Impacts Concern Potential Decrease in Ability to

for future cultural savings on the about the challenges piped water establish a
generations acceptance in paid Extra water health between the consumption reasonable
of water costs balance impacts stakeholders relation
alternatives tariffs of between the
aquifers water
quality and
type of
consumption
Construction costs Operating costs Maintenance costs

Figure1. The proposed sustainability criteria and indicators in the case study

 Benefits for future generations (I 1 ): this indicator measures the ability of alternatives
to attain a reasonable balance of water demand and supply and not to let the future
generations suffer from water stress.
 The cultural acceptance of alternatives (I 2 ): this indicator shows that how easy an
alternative will be accepted by consumers with regard to their cultural values.
 Total savings in paid water tariffs (I 3 ): this indicator measures the ability of
alternatives to decrease the consumption of piped water in order to make savings in
the amount of cash subsides which receive by consumers from Iranian government.

5
  Extra costs (I 4 , I 5 and I 6 ): this indicator measures the paid costs by water provisioner
as a result of making changes in the structure of the system including implementing,
operating and maintenance costs. The regular rehabilitation costs which are annually
covered by water provisioner and are common in all alternatives are not included in
this indicator.
 Impacts on the water balance of aquifers (I 7 ): this indicator measures the relative
volume of required withdrawal from groundwater to satisfy the needs.
Indiscriminate withdrawal from groundwater can lead to the occurrence of problems
such as the degradation of groundwater quality and ground subsidence.
 Concern about the health impacts (I 8 ): this indicator measures the relative existing
concern about the health impacts of alternatives especially about those ones which
involve using treated wastewater and greywater.
 Potential challenges between the stakeholders (I 9 ): this indicator measures that by
putting the alternatives into practice, to what extent conflicts within the stakeholders
may occur (especially the conflicts between water provisioner and municipality
about using the water wells).
 Decrease in piped water consumption (I 10 ): this indicator measures the potential
percentage of decrease in piped water consumption with regard to the
implementation of three approaches (i.e. the modification of water tariffs, water
quality cascading and water reuse).
 Ability to establish a reasonable relation between the water quality and type of
consumption (I 11 ): with regard to its name, this indicator refers to the alternatives’
degree of success in achieving the water quality cascading objectives.

2.5. Ranking the Alternatives

To rank the alternatives, Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) method proposed in
Buckley (1985) is applied. Different stages of ranking procedure are summarized as below:
1 – Receiving pairwise comparison matrices of criteria and indicators from DMs which are
formed by crisp numbers based on the 1 to 9 comparison scale of Saati (1980).
2 – Checking the consistency of received matrices (making modifications if necessary),
fuzzifying the matrices by means of method proposed by Buckley (1985) and combining
the matrices received from DMs’ for each criterion (e.g. economic, social and etc.) and
indicator by means of weighted geometric mean method.
3 – Evaluate the alternatives with regard to the indicators by means of the “Ratings”
method proposed by Saati (2008). In this method, instead of comparing the alternatives in
pairs, they are directly scored by DMs based on a qualitative scale (e.g. very good,
moderate, poor and etc). To convert the qualitative scores to quantitative ones, the
components of the qualitative scale (e.g. very good, moderate, poor and etc) are weighted
by means of pairwise comparison method and the 1 to 9 comparison scale of Saati (1980).
4 – The final fuzzy utility of each alternative will be calculated by means of Equation 1
(Buckley, 1985):
n
~
U j  w ~ ~
i rij (1)
j 1
~
U j : Final fuzzy utility of alternative no. j
~ : Fuzzy weight of indicator no. i
w i
~
r : Fuzzy score of alternative no. j obtained from indicator no. i
ij

6
 5 – Ranking the fuzzy utility values by means of the method proposed by Lee-Kwang and
Jee-Hyong (1999). In this method, final ranking depends on the viewpoint of person who
ranks the alternatives (e.g. optimistic, pessimistic or neutral) and all fuzzy utility values are
evaluated in a “viewpoint function”.

3. Results and Discussions

In this section, the preliminary results of the case study are presented. To fuzzify the crisp
numbers, Triangular Fuzzy Numbers (TFN) are applied. A TFN is shown by (a,b,c) which
means a straight line from (a,0) to (b,1) and another straight line from (b,1) to (c,0). Two
simplifier assumptions are made in this work. First, the weights of DMs’ opinions are
considered equal, and second, the weights of criteria are divided equally between their sub-
criteria (indicator) in the pairwise comparison. Pairwise comparison matrices are elicited
from the questionnaires which are completed by DMs. The weights of criteria are
determined by managers and policy-makers. The weights of indicators and scores of
alternatives are determined by experts. The fuzzy weights of sustainability criteria are
shown in Table 3. Table 4 shows the decision matrix. In decision matrix, A 1 to A 6 are
alternatives and I 1 to I 11 are sustainability indicators.

Table 3. The fuzzy weights of sustainability criteria

Sustainability criteria Fuzzy weights
Social (0.17,0.25,0.36)
Economic (0.18,0.25,0.37)
Environmental (0.16,0.23,0.34)
Technical (0.18,0.26,0.38)

Table 4. Decision matrix (the scores of alternatives obtained from sustainability indicators)
A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6
I1 (0.03,0.04,0,07) (0.08,0.14,0.26) (0.15,0.27,0.47) (0.15,0.27,0.47) (0.28,0.47,0.74) (0.15,0.27,0.47)
I2 (0.28,0.47,0.74) (0.15,0.27,0.47) (0.08,0.14,0.26) (0.08,0.14,0.26) (0.08,0.14,0.26) (0.08,0.14,0.26)
I3 (0,0,0) (0.08,0.14,0.26) (0.15,0.27,0.47) (0.15,0.27,0.47) (0.28,0.47,0.74) (0.15,0.27,0.47)
I4 (0.36,0.51,0.7) (0.36,0.51,0.7) (0.09,0.13,0.2) (0.09,0.13,0.2) (0.04,0.06,0.1) (0.02,0.03,0.05)
I5 (0.36,0.51,0.7) (0.36,0.51,0.7) (0.36,0.51,0.7) (0.09,0.13,0.2) (0.09,0.13,0.2) (0.04,0.06,0.1)
I6 (0.36,0.51,0.7) (0.36,0.51,0.7) (0.09,0.13,0.2) (0.09,0.13,0.2) (0.04,0.06,0.1) (0.02,0.03,0.05)
I7 (0.15,0.22,0.33) (0.15,0.22,0.33) (0.15,0.22,0.33) (0.08,0.13,0.21) (0.08,0.13,0.21) (0.04,0.06,0.08)
I8 (0.41,0.56,0.74) (0.41,0.56,0.74) (0.15,0.22,0.33) (0.08,0.13,0.21) (0.08,0.13,0.21) (0.08,0.13,0.21)
I9 (0.38,0.53,0.71) (0.38,0.53,0.71) (0.38,0.53,0.71) (0.04,.06,0.13) (0.04,0.06,0.13) (0.03,0.04,0.05)
I 10 (0,0,0) (0.06,0.08,0.1) (0.17,0.21,0.25) (0.24,0.26,0.28) (0.35,0.39,0.42) (0.2,0.22,0.24)
I 11 (0.03,0.04,0.05) (0.04,0.06,0.13) (0.08,0.13,0.2) (0.16,0.24,0.35) (0.38,0.53,0.71) (0.08,0.13,0.2)

Table 5 is presented the final ranking of alternatives. Alternative 2 which has good scores
in most of the indicators gained the first rank. Alternative 1 also gained a good rank mostly
because of good scores obtained from social and economic indicators, but it doesn’t mean
this alternative is recommendable to implement. Relatively low scores in economic and
environmental criteria is the main reason that Alternatives 4 and 6 gained poor ranks. It
should be noted that these are the preliminary results of the ranking and the effects of
uncertain parameters variations (e.g. the weights of DMs’ opinions) on final ranking and
the robustness of different ranking scenarios have not yet evaluated. In the future works,

7
 sensitivity analysis and robustness analysis will be carried out to check the reliability of
ranking results.

Table 5. The final ranking of alternatives

Final crisp utility value
Rank Alternative (U j )
1 2 0.45
2 1 0.43
3 3 0.36
4 5 0.33
5 4 0.26
6 6 0.19

4. Conclusions

In this paper, different components of an implemented sustainability assessment study for a

given urban water supply and distribution system in Tehran, the capital city of Iran are
introduced. The objectives of the case study are the assessment of relative sustainability
scores of different urban water supply and distribution systems alternatives and ranking
them. The preliminary results of the case study are also presented in this work. In the
forthcoming research works, the final results of the case study will be published.

5. References

Buckley, J. J. (1985) “Fuzzy Hierarchical Analysis” Fuzzy Sets and Systems, 17(3) 223-247.
Hiessl, H., Toussaint, D. and Walz, R. (2001) “Design and Sustainability Assessment of Scenarios of Urban
Water Infrastructure Systems” Proc. 5th International Conference on Technology, Policy and Innovation,
Delft, The Netherlands.
Icana (News Agency of Parliament of Islamic Republic of Iran). (2009) The Approved Law of Modifying the
Subsides System. Accessed on 12 March 2011 via:
http://www.icana.ir/News/Parliament/2010/1/52183/0/default.aspx
Jeppsson, U. and Hellstrom, D. (2002) “Systems Analysis for Environmental Assessment of Urban Water
and Wastewater Systems” Water Science and Technology, 46(6-7) 121-129.
Lee-Kwang, H., and Jee-Hyong, L. (1999) “A Method for Ranking Fuzzy Numbers and Its Application to
Decision-Making” IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems, 7 (6) 677-686.
Lundie, S., Ashbolt, N., Livingston, D., Lai, E., Kärrman, E., Blaikie, J. and Anderson, J. (2008)
Methodology for Evaluating the Overall Sustainability of Urban Water Systems, Water Services Association
of Australia (WSAA), Occasional Paper, 17, 6-99.
Motevallian, S. S. and Tabesh, M. (2011) “A Framework for Sustainability Assessment of Urban Water
Systems Using a Participatory Approach” Proc. 4th International Perspective on Water Resources and The
Environment Conference, Singapore.
Penning de vries, F. W. T., Acquay, H., Molden, D., Scherr, S. J., Valentin, C. and Cofie, O. (2003)
Integrated Land and Water Management for Food and Environmental Security: Comprehensive Assessment
of Water Management in Agriculture, International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Research Report 1,
Sri Lanka.
Rebitzer, G., Hunkeler, D. and Jolliet, O. (2003) “LCC-the Economic Pillar of Sustainability: Methodology
and Application to Wastewater Treatment” Environmental Progress, 22(4), 241-249.
Saati, T. L. (1980) The Analytical Hierarchy Process, Planning Priority, Resources Allocation, RWS
Publications, USA.
Saati, T. L. (2008) “Decision Making with the Analytic Hierarchy Process” International J. of Services
Sciences, 1(1) 83-98.
Tillman, A. M., Lundström, H. and Svingby, M. (1998) “Life-Cycle Assessment of Municipal Wastewater
Systems” International J. of LCA, 3 (3) 145-157.

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