An Original Theoretical Framework for Sustainable Urban Water Cycle Management in Rapidly Urbanising Nigerian Cities Using Digital Twin Technology

Rapid urbanisation in Nigerian cities is disrupting natural water cycles through increased imperviousness, groundwater over-extraction, wastewater mismanagement, and flood risk escalation, requiring an integrated management approach that current institutional frameworks are unable to provide. This study develops an original theoretical framework for sustainable urban water cycle management in rapidly urbanising Nigerian cities using digital twin technology as the enabling platform. The theoretical framework conceptualises the urban water cycle (rainfall-runoff, groundwater recharge, potable water supply, wastewater management, and stormwater drainage) as a coupled socio-technical system, and develops a digital twin architecture that represents the dynamic state of the entire urban water cycle in real time. Original theoretical contributions include a data fusion model for assimilating heterogeneous urban water cycle data (sensor, remote sensing, citizen science, and administrative records) into a unified state estimation; a machine learning-based anomaly detection algorithm for identifying system failures and inefficiencies across the integrated water cycle; and a multi-stakeholder optimisation algorithm for recommending water cycle management interventions that simultaneously satisfy competing objectives of service reliability, environmental sustainability, and financial feasibility. The framework is implemented as a prototype digital twin for the Owerri urban water system and evaluated through three-year simulation of historic water cycle performance. The prototype accurately reproduces observed system behaviour across water supply, drainage, and flood events. The study provides an original interdisciplinary contribution bridging digital twin technology, urban hydrology, and water resources management for the Nigerian context.

Keywords: digital twin, urban water cycle, sustainable water management, rapidly urbanising cities, Nigeria