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Role-playing activity


An engineer for a day!

You will find all of the resources you need to navigate this activity on this page:

Getting started

Before we dive into the task, you need to learn about our water resources model and how it relates to the concepts learned in class. To help you with this you can watch a video on navigating the Water Futures: East London website and model.

Water Futures Model - a Video Guide

Watch a video describing the water futures functionality and how to use it.




Your task

You are a water resources engineer within a consulting company. You are part of a team of engineers handling a project commissioned by the Mayor of London and the Environment Agency. The clients want you to produce a study that will assess the availability of drinking water for London water users over the next 30 years. The study must consider that London’s population is expected to increase steadily over the years and account for the impact of climate change on water resources.

Clients are interested to know if the current system can provide enough water for the city in the future, particularly if the water demand continues to be high. If it can't, what are some options and alternative sources of water London could use to supply its citizens with enough drinking water?

How to complete the task

In order to complete the task you will need to run the model a couple of times and perform some calculations. We created a series of videos to help you. We also created some spread sheets to help you record model outputs and the necessary calculations.


Download and complete the Excel decision table →

Access the Water Futures East London website →

Running the model

Performing calculations


Homework

Answer the two questions set in the task.

  1. Clients are interested to know if the current system can provide enough water for the city in the future, particularly in the case of a large increase in water demand.
  2. If not, what are some options and alternative sources of water London could use to supply its citizens with enough drinking water?

Prepare a short report. Include the annual frequency calculations and your team's reasons for your final decision. Make sure you include discussion on how you made your choice between plans based on financial cost, social contribution and environmental impact.