Leveraging water-wastewater data interdependencies to understand infrastructure systems' behaviors during COVID-19 pandemic.

Social distancing policies (SDPs) implemented worldwide in response to COVID-19 pandemic have led to spatiotemporal variations in water demand and wastewater flow, creating potential operational and service-related quality issues in water-sector infrastructure. Understanding water-demand variations is especially challenging in contexts with limited availability of smart meter infrastructure, hindering utilities' ability to respond in real time to identified system vulnerabilities. Leveraging water and wastewater infrastructures' interdependencies, this study proposes the use of high-granular wastewater-flow data as a proxy to understand both water and wastewater systems' behaviors during active SDPs.

Impacts of COVID-19 social distancing policies on water demand: A population dynamics perspective.

Social distancing policies (SDPs) implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have led to temporal and spatial shifts in water demand across cities. Water utilities need to understand these demand shifts to respond to potential operational and water-quality issues. Aided by a fixed-effects model of citywide water demand in Austin, Texas, we explore the impacts of various SDPs (e.

Human-Infrastructure Interactions during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Understanding Water and Electricity Demand Profiles at the Building Level.

When engineers design and manage a building's water and electricity utilities, they must make assumptions about resource use. These assumptions are often challenged when unexpected changes in demand occur, such as the spatial and temporal changes observed during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Social distancing policies (SDPs) enacted led many universities to close their campuses and implement remote learning, impacting utility consumption patterns.

Resilient Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Systems through Integrated Humanitarian-Development Processes: The Case of Lebanon's Protracted Refugee Crisis.

When populations are displaced, say after a hurricane or a man-made crisis, water and wastewater utilities can face a real challenge in providing services to those displaced. The challenge is especially difficult when the local infrastructure was already strained in trying to meet the host community's pre-displacement demand. What most communities need are resilient water and wastewater infrastructure systems, and what we develop in this paper is an integrated approach that can achieve such systems.

Implications of Social Distancing Policies on Drinking Water Infrastructure: An Overview of the Challenges to and Responses of U.S. Utilities during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Social distancing policies (SDPs) implemented throughout the United States in response to COVID-19 have led to spatial and temporal shifts in drinking water demand and, for water utilities, created sociotechnical challenges. During this unique period, many water utilities have been forced to operate outside of design conditions with reduced workforce and financial capacities. Few studies have examined how water utilities respond to a pandemic; such methods are even absent from many emergency response plans.

4D-BIM to enhance construction waste reuse and recycle planning: Case studies on concrete and drywall waste streams.

Despite pressing attention on construction waste management (CWM) issues, low rates of construction waste (CW) reuse and recycling (R&R) remain a limitation in construction projects. In recent years, Building Information Modeling (BIM) has gained momentum for CWM purposes; its data-richness, visualization, and simulation capabilities provide an opportunity to enhance CW R&R planning at the project level. In this context, this study proposes temporal-based algorithms integrated with 4D-BIM for the planning of concrete and drywall waste R&R throughout construction projects.

BIM-based automated construction waste estimation algorithms: The case of concrete and drywall waste streams.

Globally, the growth of construction activities over the past years has resulted in large quantities of waste generation. Much of this waste is not reused or recycled and is subsequently redirected to landfills. The environmental impact of construction waste (CW) generation and the shortage of land resources for the creation of new landfills have reinforced the need to adopt more innovative CW management practices.

Construction waste generation estimates of institutional building projects: Leveraging waste hauling tickets.

The large proportions of waste generated from the construction industry have led to adverse environmental and socio-economic impacts, and as such, there is a need to promote construction waste management (CWM) practices. However, there is limited information regarding construction waste (CW) generated from nonresidential buildings available to support such CWM practices. This study seeks to quantify CW generated from a nonresidential institutional building project using CW data collected from 535 waste hauling tickets.

Transitioning from a Human Right to an Infrastructure Service: Water, Wastewater, and Displaced Persons in Germany.

Water and sanitation utilities across Europe have recently been challenged to provide services to asylum seekers and refugees fleeing complex humanitarian disasters. We explore public perceptions regarding how secondary disaster impacts (mass migration into an undamaged area) has impacted the utilities. We show that the hosting population is typically willing to provide water and sanitation services to displaced persons for a set period of time, even if the displaced persons are unable to pay (water and sanitation as human rights).