Exploring the relationships among reliability, resilience, vulnerability of water supply using many-objective analysis

Abstract

Reliability, resilience and vulnerability are the most commonly used performance criteria for water supply planning and management. However, there is lack of understanding of the relationships among these criteria. This paper aims to reveal the relationships among them by using an emerging many-objective visual analytics. To measure different aspects of water supply systems in terms of reliability, resilience and vulnerability, a suite of five metrics are considered: water supply reliability, mean and maximum deficits of water supply as well as mean and maximum durations of water shortage. Results obtained in this study reveals that both conflicting and synergetic relationships exist between reliability and resilience (mean deficit of water supply), and between vulnerability (mean duration of water shortage) and resilience (mean deficit of water supply) in different regions of the objective space. A more complete picture of the relationships among reliability, resilience and vulnerability than reported in the prior literature is provided in this paper thanks to the use of many-objective analysis. This study provides an in-depth understanding of the relationships and can help decision makers make an informed decision in the management of water resources systems.