Building an Integrated Water-Land Use Database for Defining Benchmarks, Conservation Targets, and User Clusters

作者：Dziedzic Rebecca^*; Margerm Katelyn; Evenson Jeff; Karney Bryan W

来源：Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 2015, 141(4): 04014065.

DOI：10.1061/(ASCE)WR.1943-5452.0000462

• Water management
• Conservation
• Data analysis
• Databases
• Water demand
• Land use

Water utilities have large amounts of data at their disposal, which are seldom being used to their full potential. Integrating water billing records with land-use and demographic data organizes information and makes inherent correlations easier to understand, facilitating communication to stakeholders. This data was integrated for three Ontario (Canada) municipalities, Barrie, Guelph, and London. A summary tool was created, with proposed metrics and charts, that facilitates comparisons between cities, definition of benchmarks, and identification of targets for conservation. More than 60% of consumption in these cities is residential, and mostly lies below the Ontario average of 267 L/cap . day. Water user clusters were created through self-organizing maps, K-means, and hierarchical clustering, and selected according to their pseudo-F and Rand statistics. Users within the same or similar property codes were found to cluster together. The application of data-mining methods provides actionable information for utilities seeking to reduce demands and increase system sustainability.

• 出版日期2015-4