Guzin Bayraksan Receives Award in Environment and Sustainability

ISE Associate Professor, Guzin Bayraksan, received INFORMS ENRE Best Publication Award in Environment and Sustainability for her work on “Reclaimed Water Network Design under Temporal and Spatial Growth and Demand Uncertainties,” Environmental Modeling & Software, 49, 103–117, 2013 with W. Zhang, G. Chung, P. Pierre-Louis, and K. Lansey. The award is given to the best refereed journal article in the area of environment and sustainability by the INFORMS Section on Energy, Natural Resources, and the Environment (ENRE).

The paper focuses on design of reclaimed water network, considering various uncertainties including city growth. Reclaimed water is treated wastewater that is re-introduced for non-potable water use.  Because reclaimed water use saves precious fresh-water resources, the paper helps a community to be sustainable. The paper’s focus is especially very important for sustainability of water-scarce regions. In addition, the paper helps a community by saving money (through cost-effective design) and generating income (through sale of reclaimed water), both of which can be used for other purposes like education. The paper applies the model and solution methodology to a real municipal reclaimed water network (but with hypothetical numbers for publication purposes).