Thesis
Water metabolism of large cities : assessing the vulnerabilities of water systems
- Creator
- Rights statement
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 2026
- Thesis identifier
- T17631
- Person Identifier (Local)
- 202187287
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- Large cities are rapidly growing as an increasing portion of humanity moves into urban settings. Among the concerns this trend raises are the vulnerabilities of drinking Water Supply Systems (WSS) and the risk of water shortages similar to electricity outages. There appears to be a gap in the literature for a framework that best captures overlooked aspects of the vulnerabilities that WSS face, including a supplier-focused method for selecting indicators that track vulnerabilities and correlation analysis of these indicators. The few published WSS Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) indices include numerous indicators that are less relevant to the resiliency of WSS. To address this gap in water systems literature, this research aims to develop a framework that identifies and assesses the vulnerabilities of WSS. This can guide decision-makers to enhance the resiliency of WSS through improved governance and investments in infrastructure. The results include a methodology with a list of criteria for selecting indicators, a novel custom index of a set of said indicators, and a newly programmed MCA Solver to run the index. Several of the indicators can be customised with special formulae and nested into sub-indicators. The software incorporates a variety of methods from the MCA literature, an ability to process and store large sets of user data, and features that existing software lacks, for example, calculating uncertainties and correlation matrix analysis. It effectively computes as a complex yet specialised calculator and is designed for general MCA applications besides WSS vulnerabilities. Significant further results were also yielded. Correlations across dozens of case study cities globally suggest some indicators measure the same vulnerability and hence should merge, while conversely others potentially represent different vulnerabilities than those which were suspected. These results advance the current tools, methods, and understanding of indicators and vulnerabilities in this field of WSS research.
- Advisor / supervisor
- Price, Chris
- Inglezakis, Vassilis J.
- Resource Type
- DOI
- Funder
Relations
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PDF of thesis T17631 | 2026-03-02 | Public | Download |