Sustainable urban water use with a GIS planning support system: A case study of metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia

Abstract

This dissertation discusses a sustainable water use framework, including chief determinants of water consumption. It presents sample analyses of sustainable water uses and demonstrates a GIS-based planning support system that includes integrated land use-water models, called 'Sustainable Water use Scenario-based Planning Support Systems’ (SWSPSS). This study is composed of three linked research analyses: a cross-sectional regression analysis to examine the relationship between key water measures with county water withdrawal data; an empirical analysis adopting a spatial error model using single family residential water billing data; and the development of sustainable water use sample analysis of an ArcGIS-based planning support system using Python scripting and ModelBuilder to forecast future water demand in the metropolitan Atlanta region, GA. The analyses find that a series of urban form variables are correlated to urban water use rates, which support the proposition that a compact growth policy would reduce per capita urban water use moderately in the long run. The major contribution of this research is to connect land use to water resource planning and to demonstrate that changes in urban form can result in more sustainable water use.