Recently, Zheng Zihan, Hu Run, and Fan Haocheng, three undergraduate students from ZJUI, who were the first three authors of the paper titled "Optimization of Urban Water Supply Planning for a Mid-Sized City in the Yangtze River Delta" won second place in the Best Undergraduate Paper Award for their paper at the World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2023 (EWRI). This awarded paper was included in the planning and management section of the conference's collection of papers. It is reported that all three students have been admitted to world-class universities and plan to continue pursuing doctoral and master's degrees at UIUC and Stanford, respectively.
EWRI is one of the highly prestigious and influential academic conferences in the field of environmental and water resources, organized by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Every year, the conference attracts top scholars, experts, and professionals from around the globe to discuss and share the latest research findings, technological innovations, and practical experiences in the field of environmental and water resources.
In recent years, the rapid urbanization in many developing countries, with China as a representative example, has once again drawn people’s attention to the management and sustainability of urban water supply and demand. In order to optimize urban water supply to meet the growing demand of many small and medium-sized cities in the Yangtze Delta, under the guidance of ZJUI Researcher, Associate Prof. Zhu Tingju and ZJUI master's student Zhou Jianyu, and with the support of the Zhejiang University SRTP project "Risk-Based Expansion Optimization of Water Supply Capacity" (Y202104452), the team has established an optimization-based integrated urban water planning model for small and medium-sized cities in the Yangtze Delta, which consists of water demand growth prediction and water supply infrastructure capacity optimization. The team has deeply analyzed the influencing factors of water demand growth and weighed the expansion approach of water supply facilities, to help relevant institutions and policy makers make better decisions.
With Haining City in Zhejiang Province as a case study, combined with reasonable assumptions and simplification of key factors, the team forecasted future urban water demand out to 2050 using a structured statistical model, and on this basis, the team provided optimal schedule and size of water supply reservoir expansion, reservoir construction and water diversion. This analysis is not intended to provide specific solutions for water supply planning and decision-making, but rather to provide useful insights into the multi-sectoral water security challenges faced in future periods of multiple uncertainties such as climate, hydrology, and socio-economic factors. Although the Case study is based on Haining City, its basic methods can also be used for reference by other small and medium-sized cities facing similar challenges in the Yangtze River Delta.
Water demand projection for 2020 to 2050, Haining City
This paper won the prize at an internationally renowned conference, fully demonstrating that ZJUI undergraduates have been recognized and appreciated by peer experts in terms of academic exploration ability and innovation spirit, indicating that ZJUI undergraduates have solid professional knowledge, excellent research exploration ability and critical thinking, and also highlighting ZJUI's unique advantages in internationalization, interdisciplinary education and research, and innovative intellectual cultivation.
Article Link: https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/9780784484852.053
Undergraduate Paper Competition Link: https://www.ewricongress.org/program/students-new-professionals
