SUMMARY

Energy and environmental impacts are two factors that will influence urban region composition in the future. One emerging issue is the effect on water usage resulting from changes in transportation trends. With many regions having stressed water resources, transportation planners need to combine information on transportation usage water consumption for any region and assess impacts on local water resources from alternative fuels and vehicles. This thesis will focus on use-phase water consumption factors for multiple vehicle modes, energy pathways, roads, and vehicle infrastructure for a given transportation network. While there are assessments of life cycle impacts for energy and vehicle usage, few repeatable models exist for assessing water consumption across several transportation modes within urban regions. As such, is it possible to develop a traceable model that combines and assesses water consumption from transportation modes and related infrastructure for a mobility network? Based on this, an object-oriented system model of transportation elements was developed using the Systems Modeling Language (SysML) to compare water consumption across vehicle modes and assess the resiliency of existing infrastructure and water resources. To demonstrate this model's intent, daily water consumption will be analyzed for current and alternative transportation scenarios projected by policies regarding the expansion of alternative fuels. The model is expected to show variations in water consumption due to fluctuations in energy pathways, market shares, and driving conditions, from which the model should help determine the feasibility of expanding alterative vehicles and fuels in these networks. While the analysis scope is limited due to data availability, the analytical framework within this model and the reusable nature of SysML model elements allows for the future expansion of additional transportation modes and infrastructure as well as other environmental analyses.