The Cascade Water Delivery System (WDS) in the Blue Mountains serves about 30,000 customers with the upper part of the system relying solely on Cascade Water Filtration Plant (WFP). Sydney Water initiated an options assessment to improve the reliability of the system responding to a range of risks that was interrupted by one of the most severe droughts on the record and required fast tracked emergency planning. Planning, design and delivery processes had to be flexible and adaptive in dealing with changing project objectives and involvement of multiple stakeholders, while still following a standard detailed assessment process and overall system focus. Solution included a hybrid, treatment and network, approach where two primary sources of water could support each other and, when needed, provide capacity to serve the full range of demands anticipated based on seasonal demand variation (with reference to daily demand variation). In the options phase, the team used a building block approach to form sets of complete system ‘integrated’ solutions that fully responded to the gaps in performance.

Reference: Shutova Y.,Thirunavukarasu S , Jafari A, Integrated Water System Planning: Cascade Source, Treatment and Network, OzWater22, Brisbane, Australia, 11-12 May, 2022.