The application of life cycle analysis in urban water systems

摘要

Application of life cycle costing methodologies in the water industry is starting to become important in the decision-making and planning process. Although these methodologies have been applied to single components of the urban water system in the past, no examples have been found where these methodologies are being applied to the total urban water life cycle. In this paper, all of the components of the urban water system have been disaggregated so that cost functions could be determined for each of the components. The cost functions have been used in a planning model to show how life cycle costing techniques can be utilised to allow critical decisions to be made in the design of an urban water distribution system.