Quantitative Measure of Sustainability for Water Distribution Systems: A Comprehensive Review
1
Future and Fusion Lab, School of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Korea
2
School of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Korea
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2020, 12(23), 10093; https://doi.org/10.3390/su122310093
Received: 12 November 2020 / Revised: 29 November 2020 / Accepted: 30 November 2020 / Published: 3 December 2020
(This article belongs to the Section Sustainable Engineering and Science)
This work provides a comprehensive review of the quantitative measures of sustainability proposed for water distribution systems (WDSs) and their sustainable development. After a comprehensive literature review, eighteen studies overall, either clearly proposing quantitative measures of sustainability (three studies) or highlighting sustainable development (fifteen studies), were selected for a closer review. All three measures showed either a lack of applicability or were missing important aspects of sustainability. Additionally, they have not been thoroughly validated by demonstrating the measures under acceptable scenarios/conditions. The reviewed sustainable development practices showed that energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions, life cycle costing, and reliability were widely used to evaluate environmental, economic, and social impacts, respectively. The two primary recommendations made based upon reviews were to: (1) consider balancing usage (cost) and gain (benefit), rather than impacts; (2) consider indirect (cascading/consequential) interactions. Overall, existing measures of sustainability and sustainable development practices in WDSs must be advanced to accommodate a focus on restorative systems, as well as to maximize benefits and enable multidisciplinary and broader analyses.
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Keywords:
water sustainability; sustainable development; water distribution system; drinking water infrastructure
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MDPI and ACS Style
Lee, S.; Kim, J.H. Quantitative Measure of Sustainability for Water Distribution Systems: A Comprehensive Review. Sustainability 2020, 12, 10093. https://doi.org/10.3390/su122310093
AMA Style
Lee S, Kim JH. Quantitative Measure of Sustainability for Water Distribution Systems: A Comprehensive Review. Sustainability. 2020; 12(23):10093. https://doi.org/10.3390/su122310093
Chicago/Turabian StyleLee, Seungyub, and Joong H. Kim 2020. "Quantitative Measure of Sustainability for Water Distribution Systems: A Comprehensive Review" Sustainability 12, no. 23: 10093. https://doi.org/10.3390/su122310093
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