CAREER:Water and Energy Sustainability in the Built Environment: Systems Science for the Blue City

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

This career project is targeted to advance water and energy sustainability in the built environment through integrated research and education at the frontier of systems science. Water and energy are two vital and highly interconnected resources. In the energy-water nexus, innovations in infrastructure and policy can transform cities towards sustainability goals. Moving beyond the traditional sustainability paradigm of the "green city" focused primarily on energy, this project aims to create solutions for water sustainability, termed here the "blue city". Advancing both water and energy infrastructure systems can be synergistic: the "blue city" is to be explored as a component of the "green city". To advance sustainability in the built environment, the project plan considers the utility, city, and residential scales to capture the range in different systems science approaches, from top-down and bottom-up perspectives, including the integration between the two approaches. The integrated research (R) and education (E) objectives are: R1) Characterize the energy sustainability of the water sector in urban areas, using operational data from U.S. cities; R2) Deploy smart water metering systems in residential homes to disaggregate and characterize end uses; R3) Integrate water data with energy data to predict city-scale outcomes from efficiency programs and investments; E1) Develop, implement, and evaluate in-class, online, and informal coursework integrating concepts of water and energy technologies and policies; E2) Organize and implement STEM programming events on water and electricity topics in collaboration with the Girl Scouts of Central Illinois. Outcomes from the research and education objectives are anticipated to generate new, previously unquantified knowledge of the energy-water nexus. At the utility scale, systems science advancements include collecting,organizing, curating, and openly publishing a comprehensive database of treated flow and energy consumption (and recovery, where applicable) at U.S. water and wastewater utilities, and benchmarking direct and indirect water and energy consumption from an urban metabolism perspective. At the residential household scale, innovative expected results include creating characteristic models of residential water demand patterns from a previously unstudied temperate-humid climate, using Chicago as a testbed. Integrating the utility and household scales to the city scale, advancements include predicting resource efficiency outcomes from statistical models correlating electricity and water consumption. Additional contributions include citizen science training and data collection with Girl Scouts and innovative pedagogical approaches to water and energy sustainability curriculum, building on findings from research analyses and producing data to inform research approaches. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.