An integrated system approach to characterise a drinking water infrastructure system

Ritsche Anne Kloosterman, Jan Peter van der Hoek

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)
49 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The object of this article is the drinking water infrastructure (DWI), a critical societal infrastructure. To make effective decisions it is important to characterise and understand the complexity of DWI systems. DWI systems can be seen as a system of systems, consisting of the social-ecological system and the social-technical system. The social-ecological system determines the location and seize of the water resources, while the social-technical system is about the technical infrastructure. The two systems with different characteristics must align to work effective together in the DWI system. The tension between different lifecycles of the assets and dynamic changes in both systems, the time of change, is important to take into account. The SoPhyTech infra framework was developed based on the two systems and time of change. The advantages of applying the SoPhyTech infra framework is studied in a case comparing two very different DWI systems: Indonesia (Semarang) and the Netherlands (Vitens). The SoPhyTech infra framework was shown to be effective for characterising a DWI system with different interacting lifecycles in different systems and it is expected that it also can be used to characterise other infrastructure systems.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-22
Number of pages22
JournalInternational Journal of Critical Infrastructures
Volume16
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020

Bibliographical note

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Keywords

  • Complexity
  • Critical infrastructure
  • Decision-making
  • Drinking water
  • Long life time assets
  • Long-term decisions making
  • Semarang
  • Social-ecological system
  • Social-technical system
  • SoS
  • System of systems
  • Technical infrastructure
  • Vitens
  • Water resources

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'An integrated system approach to characterise a drinking water infrastructure system'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this