scholarly journals Adapting the IWA water balance to intermittent water supply and flat-rate tariffs without customer metering

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 396-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miran Mastaller ◽  
Philipp Klingel

The International Water Association water balance is an approach applied worldwide for determining and analysing water losses in water distribution systems (WDS) up to the point of customer metering. Thus, water losses occurring ‘before’ a customer meter are at the expenses of the water utility while water lost or wasted ‘after’ the meter is paid for by the customer. This applies to systems where customer metering is in place and/or consumption is charged according to the consumed volumes. However, many WDS in the world lack customer meters, are operated intermittently and a considerable amount of water is lost or wasted within the private property, e.g. by overflows of private tanks. The flat-rate tariff applied might not cover this amount or part of the amount. Thus, actual consumption and wastage should be separately quantified or estimated with respect to the utility's water reduction measures and the calculation of revenue water. This paper presents a water balance approach adapted to WDS which are operated intermittently, lack customer metering and charge flat-rate tariffs as well as a methodology for establishing the balance. The application is demonstrated for a district metered area of the city of Tiruvannamalai, India.

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 347-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miran Mastaller ◽  
Philipp Klingel

Abstract Establishing the water balance developed by the International Water Association (IWA) is a worldwide applied approach to determine and analyse water losses in water distribution systems (WDS). The water balance covers those parts of a WDS within the responsibility of the water utility. Water losses occurring ‘before’ a customer meter are at the expense of the utility, while water lost or wasted ‘after’ the meter is paid for by the customer. This applies to systems where customer metering is in place and/or consumption is charged according to the consumed volumes. However, many WDS in the world lack customer meters, are operated intermittently and apply flat-rate tariffs. In intermittent supplies, a considerable amount of water is lost or wasted within the private properties. The flat-rate tariff might not cover this amount or part of the amount. Thus, actual consumption and wastage should be separately quantified with respect to the utility's water reduction measures. Accepting the described conditions, the authors have developed an adaption of the IWA water balance and the methods to establish the balance. In this paper the application of the developed approach in an initially unmetered WDS with intermittent water supply in the city of Tiruvannamalai, India, is presented.


2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Waldron

The application of International Water Association guidelines to control water losses provides a foundation for new methods and psychologies for controlling Water Distribution Systems. Best management techniques utilizing International Water Association water loss control methodologies compared to totally open distribution networks can now be supported for analysis scenarios using both network analysis and genetic algorithms.


Water ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 98
Author(s):  
Athanasios V. Serafeim ◽  
George Kokosalakis ◽  
Roberto Deidda ◽  
Irene Karathanasi ◽  
Andreas Langousis

Quantification of water losses (WL) in water distribution networks (WDNs) is a crucial task towards the development of proper strategies to reduce them. Currently, WL estimation methods rely on semi-empirical assumptions and different implementation strategies that increase the uncertainty of the obtained estimates. In this work, we compare the effectiveness and robustness of two widely applied WL estimation approaches found in the international literature: (a) the water balance, or top-down, approach introduced by the International Water Association (IWA), and (b) the bottom-up or minimum night flow (MNF) approach, based on a recently proposed probabilistic MNF estimation method. In doing so, we use users’ consumption and flow-pressure data from the 4 largest pressure management areas (PMAs) of the WDN of the city of Patras (the third largest city in Greece), which consist of more than 200 km of pipeline, cover the entire city center of Patras, and serve approximately 58,000 consumers. The obtained results show that: (a) when MNF estimation is done in a rigorous statistical setting from high resolution flow-pressure timeseries, and (b) there is sufficient understanding of the consumption types and patterns during day and night hours, the two approaches effectively converge, allowing for more reliable estimation of the individual WL components. In addition, when high resolution flow-pressure timeseries are available at the inlets of PMAs, the suggested version of the bottom-up approach with probabilistic estimation of MNF should be preferred as less sensitive, while allowing for confidence interval estimation of the individual components of water losses and development of proper strategies to reduce them.


2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 1414-1424
Author(s):  
Philipp Klingel ◽  
Axel Knobloch

Using conventional methods and tools for determining detailed zonal water balances and performance indicators involves considerable efforts in manual data collection and processing. Hence, water balances mostly are determined for a whole network only. Unmetered components are often neglected or based on rough estimates. This article presents an approach to the automated determination of zonal water balances and its implementation as a software tool. The approach is demonstrated for the practical case of the Pforzheim water utility (Stadtwerke Pforzheim GmbH & Co. KG).


Water Policy ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 325-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanford V. Berg

Six recent publications by the International Water Association underscore the growing importance of quantitative studies of water utilities for identifying (1) performance patterns, (2) trends in key indicators and (3) best practice. Since each author takes a different approach to the problem of performance measurement and incentives for improvement, the books provide different perspectives on the decision-relevance of empirical analysis and cases for managers and policymakers. Key lessons from the volumes include the use of benchmarking as a tool for establishing better internal incentives, the importance of data collection and auditing and the role of transparency in helping stakeholders become more informed about utility operations. Analysts need to help stakeholders understand sector complexities, where hydrology, topology, historical developments outside current management's control, population income levels and the amount of skilled labor differ widely across and even within nations. The six books taken together underscore the value of quantifying relative performance and improving our awareness of production processes and the institutional arrangements that support strong water sector performance.


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 580-587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Mounce ◽  
John Machell ◽  
Joby Boxall

Safe, clean drinking water is a foundation of society and water quality monitoring can contribute to ensuring this. A case study application of the CANARY software to historic data from a UK drinking water distribution system is described. Sensitivity studies explored appropriate choice of algorithmic parameter settings for a baseline site, performance was evaluated with artificial events and the system then transferred to all sites. Results are presented for analysis of nine water quality sensors measuring six parameters and deployed in three connected district meter areas (DMAs), fed from a single water source (service reservoir), for a 1 year period and evaluated using comprehensive water utility records with 86% of event clusters successfully correlated to causes (spatially limited to DMA level). False negatives, defined by temporal clusters of water quality complaints in the pilot area not corresponding to detections, were only approximately 25%. It was demonstrated that the software could be configured and applied retrospectively (with potential for future near real time application) to detect various water quality event types (with a wider remit than contamination alone) for further interpretation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 104
Author(s):  
Vinnet Ndlovu ◽  
Peter Newman ◽  
Mthokozisi Sidambe

Cities are engines of socio-economic development. This article examines and provides insight into the extent of localisation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) using the City of Bulawayo (CoB), in Zimbabwe, as the case study. The key question posited is ‘Does Bulawayo demonstrate potential for sustainable development?’. Bulawayo is a strange case study as in the period of the Millennium Development Goals Zimbabwe had a massive increase in death rates from 2000 to 2010 due to the HIV pandemic, political chaos and economic disintegration of that period. Coming out of that period there was little to help cities like Bulawayo grasp the opportunity for an SDG-based development focus. However, after the paper creates a multi-criteria framework from a Systematic Literature Review on the localisation of the SDG agenda, the application to Bulawayo now generates hope. The city is emerging from the collapse of the city’s public transport and water distribution systems, once the envy of and benchmark for many local authorities in the country, and has detailed SDG plans for the future. Bulawayo now serves as a planning model for localisation of sustainable development goals.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. e407101220659
Author(s):  
Emerson Pessanha de Almeida ◽  
Fernando das Graças Braga da Silva ◽  
Victor Eduardo de Mello Valerio

The research carried out in the water distribution networks is of great importance, given the social, environmental and economic impacts that have occurred due to the scarcity of water resources. Therefore, any scientific effort shown in research that studies water distribution systems is of great relevance. Techniques such as mathematical modeling, computer simulation and statistical methods are widely used in order to obtain more reliable answers, whether for the identification of the current situation of the network, as well as for the prediction of scenarios, failure events, increased demand, etc. The objective of this work is to carry out a bibliometric analysis to identify the state of the art of research that addresses the theme of water distribution networks for the control and reduction of the volume of water losses, which will serve as a guide for future works to to structure itself in the most relevant researches that study the theme. The developed methodology was able to analyze a metadata composed of 4188 documents taken from the Web of Science journals database. As a result, a geographical view of the theme was obtained, pointing out the main countries, affiliations, journals and researchers, as well as pointing out the main documents and relevance of the theme. It can be concluded after the results obtained that bibliometric analysis is an important tool for obtaining the state of the art. With it is possible to have a better understanding of the current situation in the development of research, familiarizing researchers with what is most current and relevant.


Author(s):  
Zukang Hu ◽  
Beiqing Chen ◽  
Wenlong Chen ◽  
Debao Tan ◽  
Dingtao Shen

Abstract Leak detection and location in water distribution systems (WDSs) is of utmost importance for reducing water loss, which is, however, a major challenge for water utility companies. To this end, researchers have proposed a multitude of methods to detect such leaks in WDSs. Model-based and data-driven approaches, in particular, have found widespread uses in this area. In this paper, we reviewed both these approaches and classified the techniques used by them according to their leak detection methods. It is seen that model-based approaches require highly calibrated hydraulic models, and their accuracies are sensitive to modeling and measurement uncertainties. On the contrary, data-driven approaches do not require an in-depth understanding of the WDS. However, they tend to result in high false positive rates. Furthermore, neither of these approaches can handle anomalous variations caused by unexpected water demands.


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