ABSTRACT. The design of a municipal water supply system may involve utilizing singly or in combination a conventional water supply, a desalted water supply, and a supply from a recharged aquifer reservoir. Optimization of the design requires a model formulated in a way that modern methods of systems analysis can be used. This study concerns the formulation, solution, and evaluation of a mathematical model of a municipal water supply system that includes a supply from a variable quality output desalting plant. The combined system is operated in conjunction with an artificially recharged aquifer reservoir. Also considered are short periods of water shortages. The model is set up in an approximate linear programming format, and the optimum solution (minimum cost) is found. The model is tested by applying it to the design of a supply system to meet the 1985 estimated water demand of the city of Lincoln, Nebraska. Results of this test indicate that the artificial reservoir and the existing conventional supply system are capable of supplying that demand during all but the peak period. An electrodialysis desalting system is used in this analysis. It is competitive only when the length of transmission pipeline for a conventional supply system approaches 90 miles. The model is formulated in a general way so that it can be applied to almost all situations encountered in municipal water supply design, as well as to the specific system designated for this study.
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