Forecasting daily urban water demand: a case study of Melbourne

To forecast daily water consumption for Melbourne, Australia a time series model is formulated as a set of equations representing the effects of four factors on water use namely, trend, seasonality, climatic correlation and autocorrelation. Base water use was estimated by the lowest months of water consumption. The year-to-year long-term trend in base consumption was represented by a polynomial as a function of time. Seasonal water use was modelled by seasonal, climatic and persistence components in consideration of the summer and winter six months separately. The model developed was tested using a cross-validation procedure, and an independent data set during the summer period from 1 December 1996 to 31 January 1997.