Reliable urban water demand forecasting provides the basis for making operational, tactical, and strategic decisions for drinking water utilities. For instance, utilities need to know the short-term water demand for treatment plants and wells to appropriately meet it. Utilities also need to predict long-term water demand, such as 20 to 30 years into the future, to develop new water sources and expand their treatment plants.
Engineering Management and Systems Engineering (EMSE) Professor Thomas Mazzuchi and his collaborators have recently been awarded the Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management Seminal Paper Award for their research investigating these issues.
The project was funded by Alan Roberson, the former Director of Federal Relations at the American Water Works Association and a longtime collaborator and sponsor of GW’s undergraduate systems engineering projects.
Mazzuchi also collaborated with his longtime collaborator, Professor Refik Soyer in the GW School of Business, an expert in time-series analysis and forecasting, and Dr. Emmanuel Donkor, an EMSE PhD graduate who is now a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.
The study explores the literature on urban water demand forecasting published from 2000 to 2010 to identify methods and models useful for specific water utility decision-making problems. Although a wide variety of methods and models have garnered attention, their applications differ depending on the forecast variable, its periodicity, and the forecast horizon.
For example, artificial neural networks are more likely to be used for short-term forecasting, while econometric models, coupled with simulation or scenario-based forecasting, tend to be used for long-term strategic decisions. Mazzuchi and his team argue that drinking water utilities should more seriously consider probabilistic forecasting methods if they are to make decisions that reflect the uncertainty in future demand forecasts.
Although this research falls outside his main areas of expertise in systems engineering and applied statistics, Mazzuchi is honored to receive the award and looks forward to traveling to the 2026 World Environmental and Water Resources Congress in Mobile, Alabama, to accept it on behalf of the team.
“I am quite honored. The funny thing is, this research was not heavily funded, nor was it even a main part of my research focus, but it represents the best academia has to offer – a collaboration between industry and two different schools within the university that provides funding for a student. Of this, I am very proud,” Mazzuchi shared.