(356b) Competent, Sustainable, and Cost Effective Integrated Infrastructures for Water Supply and Energy Recovery Via Strategic Design and Deployment of Advanced Technologies

Mounting demands on an essentially fixed global resource of water, and the resulting needs for repeated reclamation, recycle, and reuse of that resource, present serious challenges to our abilities to provide supplies suitable for human consumption. Coupled with this are the realities of deteriorating water infrastructures, increasingly stringent drinking water standards, and the fact that current practices of treating the total demands of communities to levels required for human consumption are not indefinitely sustainable. Viable alternative strategies that integrate more effective water recovery for potable use with improved means for production and delivery of higher quality water for human consumption are thus essential. Given the inherent advantages of flexibility and responsiveness associated with decentralization of complex functions and operations, the strategic dispersal of flexible advanced treatment and control technologies throughout water transport and storage networks is a logical alternative to the traditional approach to water supply and wastewater management infrastructure design and operation. Integration of our most competent water treatment and energy conversion technology systems with certain cost-critical components of traditional water treatment and distribution/collection infrastructures would facilitate their optimally efficient and cost-effective design, construction, and operation.