Coupling Decision Support Systems For The Optimization of The Management of Water Distribution Networks

The analysis of the current situation of water distribution networks is based on all the alternatives that are technically feasible and implemented from the decision-maker's point of view. Taking the water distribution network of Tourville city as a case study, this paper combines a set of Decision Support Systems (DSS) including the Geographic Information Systems (GIS), multi-criteria analysis and hydraulic simulation models to establish a multi-criteria decision-making aid method for renovation and rehabilitation of water distribution networks. This combination creates an expert management system based on multi-criteria decision making that strengthens the optimization of the management of water distribution networks in terms of renovation and rehabilitation. After dividing the water distribution network into three emergency levels, it was concluded that 26% of the network is in urgent need of rehabilitation.

Pressure Sensor Placement for Leak Localization in Water Distribution Networks Using Information Theory

This paper presents a method for optimal pressure sensor placement in water distribution networks using information theory. The criterion for selecting the network nodes where to place the pressure sensors was that they provide the most useful information for locating leaks in the network. Considering that the node pressures measured by the sensors can be correlated (mutual information), a subset of sensor nodes in the network was chosen. The relevance of information was maximized, and information redundancy was minimized simultaneously. The selection of the nodes where to place the sensors was performed on datasets of pressure changes caused by multiple leak scenarios, which were synthetically generated by simulation using the EPANET software application. In order to select the optimal subset of nodes, the candidate nodes were ranked using a heuristic algorithm with quadratic computational cost, which made it time-efficient compared to other sensor placement algorithms. The sensor placement algorithm was implemented in MATLAB and tested on the Hanoi network. It was verified by exhaustive analysis that the selected nodes were the best combination to place the sensors and detect leaks.