Efficient pricing mechanisms are critical for optimizing water consumption, managing demand, and promoting equitable resource distribution. This paper presents a Time-of-Use (TOU) dynamic pricing model integrated with Blockchain Technology (BT) to address these challenges. The proposed model categorizes time into Peak, Off-Peak, and Shoulder hours, applying distinct pricing tiers responsive to demand fluctuations, further refined through seasonal adjustments and demand constraints to support sustainability and regulatory compliance. Implemented on the Polygon blockchain - chosen for its low transaction cost, high scalability, and ethereum compatibility - the framework leverages Smart Contracts (SC) for secure, transparent and automated real-time pricing adjustments. Full on-chain data storage eliminates off-chain dependencies, ensuring data integrity and traceability throughout the water supply chain. Pseudonymous blockchain identities maintain user privacy while providing full auditability via immutable on-chain records. Security vulnerabilities such as input manipulation, arithmetic overflows, and unauthorized access receive proactive mitigation through secure coding practices, role-based access control, and logic constraints. Performance evaluation using the k6 load testing tool under simulated real-world conditions shows robust system behavior: response times ranged from 2.14s to 5.64s, with the 90th and 95th percentiles at 3.5s and 4.26s, respectively. Latency ranged from 5.96ms (median) to 49.54ms (95th percentile), validating the system’s responsiveness, scalability, and reliability under concurrent user requests. The test results further highlight the system’s ability to handle concurrent user requests efficiently, demonstrating reliable performance under simulated varying workloads.
Claire Cropper, Elizabeth Wulbrecht, Patrick Thomson, Aaron Dotson · 8 authors
Despite nationally reported metrics that suggest high levels of water security, approximately 12% of the United States of America (US) population is estimated to be water insecure based on the definition in United Nations (UN) SDG 6.1.1. Approximately half of these households are served by Decentralized Water Systems (DWS). In contrast, most research, engineering, innovation, and government programs are focused on Centralized Water Systems (CWS). In this perspective, we 1) characterize and define DWS using professional language common for CWS; 2) compare the social, economic, and regulatory responsibilities of stakeholders in each system; 3) outline existing strategies to professionalize this sector; and 4) propose research avenues to further professionalize DWS to ensure households served by these systems receive equitable water service. We demonstrate that while DWS share commonalities with CWS, decentralized systems are less formally structured; have more stakeholders between source and tap; and place much of the regulatory, finance, maintenance, and safety responsibilities on individual households. These responsibilities include ensuring water quantity and quality, selecting appropriate treatment technologies, finance of repairs and upgrades, and transporting water. We propose strategies for researchers to aid in codeveloping innovative DWS solutions, ensuring relevant integration and community-driven models that better support decentralized communities.
Muhammad Tayyab Naqash, Toqeer Ali Syed, Saad S. Alqahtani, Muhammad Shoaib Siddiqui · 6 authors
Sustainable urban water management is essential to handle water scarcity, leakage, and inefficient distribution. This paper covers water management in urban areas, including an introduction, an overview of water management practices, the characteristics and functioning of water distribution systems, monitoring and control systems for efficient distribution, smart systems for optimization, strategies for water conservation and waste management, per capita water demand analysis, and desalination plant overviews. The article proposes a blockchain-based water management architecture with IoT sensors for accurate reporting. The framework uses blockchain technology to authenticate and share real-time data between sensors and the water distribution dashboard. It also has a modular API for water leakage detection and flow control to decrease water waste and enhance distribution. The suggested approach might enhance water management; however, its execution is complex. Maintaining the framework’s efficacy is advised. The research provides insights into water management and proposes a technology solution employing blockchain and IoT sensors for trustworthy data reporting and effective water distribution to promote sustainable urban water management.
Aaron Janzen, Achari Gopal, Irwin Samantha, Dore Mohammed
Many rural households do not have access to treated drinking water. However, some households may be in regions where a water treatment plant has excess capacity to supply some additional households. In such circumstances, small diameter low-pressure supply systems can be connected to major transmission lines to give these households access to water. These typically occur in locations that do not belong to recognized municipal or other local government. Such supply systems, commonly referred to as “trickle fill,” have been implemented in South America, Africa and Canada. This paper explains the concept of trickle fill supply systems. A user-friendly decision-making framework is proposed to assist the decision maker to determine whether the implementation of a trickle fill system is economically feasible for a given rural area. The decision-making assessment template (DMAT) takes into projects the economic, energy and carbon footprint changes. A case study for a rural municipality in the province of Alberta, Canada is presented to illustrate the value of the DMAT and the feasibility of trickle fill water supply as a solution. In this case study, a trickle fill water supply solution is found to be technically and economically viable and would reduce energy consumption and the carbon footprint. It is shown that trickle fill solution can be implemented, resulting in an average cost of water to be $165 per month per household. This is higher than the affordability threshold of 2% of the median household income, but comparable to the cost that the end users currently pay for drinking water in the area. A capital grant from a higher level of government, or low interest rate financing, would reduce the end user costs to the level of the affordability criterion mentioned here. Hence, a trickle fill solution is worth investigating for some rural residents. Key words: Rural water systems; economic feasibility; carbon footprint, small diameter water distribution pipelines.
Sjon van Dijk, Amanda W. Lounsbury, Arjen Y. Hoekstra, Ranran Wang
Many cities are confronted with both water scarcity and urban flooding as centralized water infrastructures becoming increasingly inadequate in a changing climate. Decentralized infrastructures like rainwater harvesting (RWH) can ease both issues. Yet, most studies find RWH offers limited infrastructure capacity at high cost. Previous assessments, however, fail to consider two critical advantages: multi-functionality and high adaptability. By improving the incorporation of these advantages in our analysis of 1.06 million buildings with distinct design and water demand characteristics and 20-year hourly precipitation records in New York City (NYC), we demonstrate, contrary to existing studies, that strategically designed, financed and implemented rooftop RWH systems in all or a subset of the buildings can meet large-scale infrastructure development needs for water supply and stormwater management. RWH implementation featuring public-private partnerships (PPP) in 43-96% of the buildings can serve 17-29% of the city's non-drinking water demands while reducing the public expenditure per unit of water supply by 13-85%. The distributed citywide RWH implementations prevent 35-56% of rooftop runoff from entering the sewage system, rivers, and/or waterways per month, with observed rooftop runoff reductions as high as 90% for a single rain event.
Madalina-Mihaela Buzau, Javier Tejedor-Aguilera, Pedro Cruz-Romero, Antonio Gómez‐Expósito
Non-technical losses (NTL) in electricity utilities are responsible for major revenue losses. In this paper, we propose a novel end-to-end solution to self-learn the features for detecting anomalies and frauds in smart meters using a hybrid deep neural network. The network is fed with simple raw data, removing the need of handcrafted feature engineering. The proposed architecture consists of a long short-term memory network and a multi-layer perceptrons network. The first network analyses the raw daily energy consumption history whilst the second one integrates non-sequential data such as its contracted power or geographical information. The results show that the hybrid neural network significantly outperforms state-of-the-art classifiers as well as previous deep learning models used in NTL detection. The model has been trained and tested with real smart meter data of Endesa, the largest electricity utility in Spain.
In Albania there are plenty of natural water resources, a fraction of these reserves cover the need of population for fresh, clean drinking water. But this sector presents several critical problems related with water suppliers. It seems they have not completed the decentralization process; they depend on state subsidies to cover losses from uncollectible bills. Literature shows traditional forms of financing of water supplier in different economies (developed or not). One of the classic financial forms is to increase the rate paid bills. The water should be seen as product that has its own market and an equilibrium price. But do the citizens of Vlora city perceive in adequate way this concept? Should be an economical problem for them if the water tariffs increase or are they using alternative resources of drinking water? The article aims to give a descriptive overview of water industry and suppliers in Albania and especially empirically conclusions about of the situation in Vlora city, focusing on the perceptions of citizens. Are the accumulated financial losses of water supplier correlated with the citizens’ perception about water as a public good? It's been used data through a structured questionnaire (Zeneli F., WP-Questionnaire, 2015) about 160 families, were part of the survey; also data from General Directorate of Water in Albania; elaborated using statistical software IBM SPSS 21, to identify link between determinants of drinking water demand in the sector. The main conclusion is that citizens see the water provider service a public good, while from water suppliers water distributed is their product that provides their market position and their economic sustainability. Let this paper be one of the first in the topic to determine drinking water demand determinants in Vlora city.