title: Estimating the potential water reuse based on fuzzy reasoning.
abstract: Studies worldwide suggest that the risk of water shortage in regions affected by climate change is growing. Decision support tools can help governments to identify future water supply problems in order to plan mitigation measures. Treated wastewater is considered a suitable alternative water resource and it is used for non-potable applications in many dry regions around the world. This work describes a decision support system (DSS) that was developed to identify current water reuse potential and the variables that determine the reclamation level. The DSS uses fuzzy inference system (FIS) as a tool and multi-criteria decision making is the conceptual approach behind the DSS. It was observed that water reuse level seems to be related to environmental factors such as drought, water exploitation index, water use, population density and the wastewater treatment rate, among others. A dataset was built to analyze these features through water reuse potential with a FIS that considered 155 regions and 183 cities. Despite some inexact fit between the classification and simulation data for agricultural and urban water reuse potential it was found that the FIS was suitable to identify the water reuse trend. Information on the water reuse potential is important because it issues a warning about future water supply needs based on climate change scenarios, which helps to support decision making with a view to tackling water shortage.
authors.affiliation: University of Coimbra, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Pólo II, Coimbra, Portugal. giovanaalmeida@dec.uc.pt
authors.forename: Giovana
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Almeida
authors.forename: José
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vieira
authors.forename: Alfeu Sá
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Marques
authors.forename: Asher
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kiperstok
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cardoso
mesh_terms: D057914:Agricultural Irrigation; D000383:Agriculture; D002947:Cities; D057231:Climate Change; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D016208:Databases, Factual; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D017143:Fuzzy Logic; D059027:Recycling; D062065:Wastewater; D014881:Water Supply
chemical_list: D062065:Wastewater
keywords: Climate change; Fuzzy logic; Potential water reuse; Water shortage