Water infrastructure flexibility through real-time control

We present a real-time control framework to enable the management and coordination of distributed urban stormwater systems. We show that by equipping existing stormwater infrastructure with affordable internet-enabled control valves, stormwater systems can be "redesigned" in real-time to adapt to individual storm events. This effectively shrinks the decision window to minutes or seconds, permitting for extended flexibility and true adaptation of stormwater systems. This is crucial particularly in flashy, urban catchments where control enables transient flows to be managed to avoid flooding and water quality impairments. By assimilating streaming sensor data into real-time control models, we show how uncertainty can be reduced across large watersheds to improve control decisions. A use case in southeast Michigan is presented where an urban of three square miles has been instrumented for stormwater control. Unlike traditional stormwater designs, which cannot provide system-level performance guarantees, the addition of remotely controllable valves enables these stormwater assets to resiliently coordinate response under a variety of precipitation and flow conditions.