Publication Highlight: Multi-scale planning model for robust urban drought response
In a recently published Environmental Research Letters paper, Multi-scale planning model for robust urban drought response, authors Dr. Marta Zaniolo, Dr. Sarah Fletcher, and Dr. Meagan Mauter propose Drought Resilient Interscale Portfolio Planning model (DRIPP), a generalizable multi-scale framework that optimizes the planning of long-term infrastructure investment and short-term urban drought responses to yield robust, location-specific, and cost-effective water supply portfolios. They apply their framework to a case study of Santa Barbara, California to investigate how uncertain future drought characteristics representing drought frequency, duration, and intensity influence optimal water supply portfolios consisting of both centralized and decentralized technologies. Their findings suggest that leveraging decentralized and centralized technologies together can help minimize water supply costs and enhance water supply reliability under climate uncertainty and that drought intensity is a key driver of risks associated with reliability, cost increases, and overbuilding of infrastructure.
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