EARLY-WARNING SYSTEMS FOR EMERGENCIES IN WATER SUPPLY

An Early Warning System (EWS) for emergency in water supply, can be defined as a system of data collection and analysis to monitor the qualitative/quantitative status of water resources, in order to provide timely notice when an emergency threatens, and thus to elicit an appropriate response in case of interruption or strong reduction of the distribution. In the framework of an agreement with the Italian Civil Protection Department, the Water Research Institute (IRSA-CNR) is developing EWS both for quantitative and qualitative emergencies concerning drinking water supply. Concerning quantitative emergencies, the goal of an EWS is to forecast on the short-medium term (from weeks to few months) the possible onset of water shortage conditions, occurring when the available resources are not sufficient to satisfy the demand, due to a significant reduction of the precipitation (drought conditions). The development of an EWS should take into account three main aspects: a) the storage capacity of the resource, b) the meteo-hydrological conditions (recharge) expected on the short-medium term; c) the demand. In this project an indicator for water scarcity in water supply systems served by a reservoir, has been developed based on the statistical treatment of the meteo-hydrological data, and applied to the reservoir of Ridracoli (Emilia-Romagna, central Italy).