Daily drinking water demand – forecast model for Hamburg

On behalf of HAMBURG WASSER, the project team developed a forecast model for estimating the daily drinking water demand in the company's supply area. For this purpose, calendar effects and weather influences are taken into account, which are of greater importance for the daily fluctuations in demand than the slowly changing demographic, urban planning and economic influences.

Research approach

The water supply of municipalities requires demand planning on different time scales. In addition to long-term planning of the demand, ensuring the daily availability of a sufficient quantity of drinking water is of central importance. The demand on a short-term time scale is subject to significant fluctuations, so that the water supplier has to plan for a safety margin. This is currently set at a flat rate and is correspondingly large in order to be able to meet daily requirements including peak demand. An estimate of short-term demand is made on the basis of a statistical, model-based analysis of earlier developments of water demand with 15-year time series of daily water deliveries to consumers and daily weather data for the same period. In addition, there is calendar information such as weekdays and holiday periods which is taken into account for analysing impacts on daily water demand.

Background

HAMBURG WASSER strives with the daily forecast model to be able to better determine peak demand, to automatically control the drinking water wells and to optimize the dimensioning of the supply system. Trends for the annual demand in the coming 30 years are still estimated with a long-term forecast model, which was developed by ISOE together with partners for HAMBURG WASSER and has already been updated and extended several times. Results of the daily forecast model are included in the long-term model in order to define the demand corridor between dry and wet years in a well-founded way and to estimate the effects of climate change on water demand.

Publications

Liehr, Stefan/Deike U. Lüdtke (2021): Hamburger Wasserverbrauchsstudie 2021 - Begleit-Analyse der Ergebnisse. Hamburg Wasser

Liehr, Stefan/Robert Lütkemeier/Deike U. Lüdtke (2021): Erstellung eines Trinkwassertagesbedarf-Prognose-Modells für das Versorgungsgebiet von HAMBURG WASSER. Frankfurt am Main: ISOE - Institut für sozial-ökologische Forschung

Funding

The project officially called "Establishment of a daily drinking water forecast model for the supply area of HAMBURG WASSER" is an assignment from Hamburger Wasserwerke GmbH.

Duration

2018/10 – 2021/06