New research that harnessed the power of a supercomputer concludes resource agreements between water utilities can help them mitigate their risks.

The researchers focused on the water supply in North Carolina’s Research Triangle, for which they developed a computational model in partnership with regional utilities. They then applied supercomputing resources, specifically from the Stampede2 system of the Texas Advanced Computing Center. This allowed them to accurately simulate risk management and long-term infrastructure planning decisions out until 2060. “We found that cooperation amongst utilities could be beneficial to both their water supply and financial needs compared to more traditional independent planning and management,” said David Gorelick, PhD, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. The researchers also identified risks of cooperation, to include asymmetric partner growth and the inflexibility of agreement structures to respond to evolving supply and demand. They hypothesized that more flexible agreements might benefit partners more by allowing them to adapt to changing conditions. The researchers also noted their findings are generalizable to any place where water providers allocate regional water resources among users that face challenges in supply and demand and in affordably financing infrastructure improvements. Read more at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.