Optimizing the formation of DMAs in a water distribution network through advanced modelling

Abstract

Water pressure management in a water distribution network (WDN) is a key component applied to achieve desirable water quality as well as a trouble-free operation of the network. This paper presents a hybrid, two-stage approach, to provide optimal separation of a WDN into District Metered Areas (DMAs), improving both water age and pressure. The first stage aims to divide the WDN into smaller areas via the Geometric Partitioning method, which is based on Recursive Coordinate Bisection (RCB). Subsequently, the Student's t-mixture model (SMM) is applied to each area, providing an optimal placement of isolation valves and separating the network in DMAs. The model is evaluated on a realistic network generated through Watergems and is compared against one variation of it implemented, including the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) as well as the Genetic Algorithm (GA) approach, obtaining impressive performance. The implementation of both stages was deployed in a MATLAB environment through the Epanet toolkit. The proposed system is very promising, especially for large size WDNs due to the decreased running time and noteworthy reduction of pressure and water age.