Virtual useR! 2024

The drinking water industry has several models that can be used to predict treatment performance and water quality. Modeling can help with treatment optimization, resiliency, and future planning, but there is no single tool that provides all models. Piecing models together requires great expertise and manual effort. Therefore, water treatment professionals are under-utilizing the wealth of data collected by utilities and published knowledge already available. Tidywater is an open-source R package that aims to make this modeling accessible. Models are added to the package as separate functions so that users have the building blocks to assemble models in any configuration. R and tidyverse provide the data science tools that aid modeling and we’ve found R is easy for engineers to learn. It was important that the package was open-source because of the potential value of the modeling. The industry needs a reliable foundation that more complex tools can be built upon so that drinking water utilities can utilize model outcomes long-term. Our goal is to expand the package so that it is used in teaching and research settings and the number of contributors and models continues to grow.