RAPID/Collaborative Research: Implications of Social Distancing Policies on Water Infrastructure Systems

This Rapid Response Research (RAPID) grant will demonstrate how drinking water services provided by water utilities have been impacted by the social distancing policies undertaken by much of the nation during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. By design, social distancing policies have caused immense change in human behavior, as families shelter in place and industrial and commercial sectors pause operations. One of the many consequences of these changes is a significant spatial, temporal, and volumetric change in water use within municipal water distribution systems. These changes have the potential to substantially impact water age and water quality both within the distribution system and within homes and other buildings. In addition, utilities are facing unprecedented workforce, financial, and logistical challenges because of the pandemic as they respond to the unknown and emerging consequences of social distancing policies. As such, this research has the potential to prevent infrastructure asset damage and negative public health impacts in communities with piped water that have undertaken social distancing. Accordingly, and, as warranted by results, this project will create technical guidance for utilities to proactively mitigate these potential negative consequences.

In this research, existing water meter data and new interview data will be used to identify changes in water use patterns associated with various social distancing regimes. Next, the impacts of these changes on the pressure and water quality in distribution systems will be evaluated via hydraulic modeling and water quality sampling and analysis. The hydraulic modeling will identify and locate potential water distribution problems in a university campus, a residential neighborhood, and a primarily commercial, urban downtown. These data, coupled with physical, chemical, and microbiological water quality analyses, will provide vital new empirical knowledge of water infrastructure performance under social distancing conditions. Interview data from utilities around the nation will further validate findings and enable the generalization of results and potential mitigation strategies. In partnership with collaborating water utilities, these combined datasets will be integrated to create a range of possible future Impact Scenarios of social distancing for water distribution systems. The empirically validated hydraulic models will be used to determine the implications of each Impact Scenario on distribution system performance, and to test mitigation strategies that utilities can implement during anticipated future waves of the pandemic and social distancing. Broadly, this research builds engineering theory to link human patterns of water use to the performance and resilience of water distribution infrastructure.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.