Tackling Urban Water Resilience: Exploiting the Potential of Smart Water Allocation in the Lisbon Living Lab

Abstract

Climate change is widening the mismatch between water supply and water demand in urban areas, affecting both. Additionally, water demand is increasing due to population growth and economic development. Water allocation is a key component of sustainable urban water management and, unlike traditional approaches, must rely on a fit-for-purpose principle, where water is valued by its quality adequacy based on the use rather than by its source, with water reuse playing a central role in urban water resilience. This paper presents a novel framework, together with the step-by-step process for its application—the smart water allocation process (SWAP) for urban non-potable uses—and the developed software toolset to facilitate the decision-making process by urban managers, water utilities, and other stakeholders. It was developed within the context of a living lab to accelerate the innovation uptake. The demand–supply matchmaking and the plan module are comprehensively described and the SWAP results and their contribution to water resilience in Lisbon are discussed. Three water allocation alternatives were defined to implement different strategies, conservation, redundancy and reuse, in two green area clusters. Synergy with climate action funding was identified. The application of the SWAP enabled decision-making based on factual evidence and fostered intuitive understanding of the urban water resilience challenges.