Exploiting digitalisation to plan interventions on large water distribution networks

Abstract

Cities rely heavily on the services provided by water distribution networks. These networks are large and complex, consisting of thousands of kilometres of buried pipes and dozens of facilities where water is treated, pumped and stored. Infrastructure managers are entrusted with the planning and execution of interventions on these assets to ensure that the provided service exceeds the minimum levels mandated by stakeholders at all times. This is a difficult task due to the spatial extent of these networks, shrinking budgets and the complexity of coordinating with multiple stakeholders. Previously, Kerwin and Adey presented an approach to address these concerns, using a small example network, leaving open the question of how this approach would work on a large real-world network. This paper fills this gap by discussing the simplifications needed to apply the methodology to a larger network and demonstrating its advantages with three applications: (a) estimating the budget requirements needed to implement various intervention strategies, (b) communicating project-level trade-offs of different intervention strategies and budget scenarios and (c) investigating how the intervention-planning activities of other networks could affect these estimates. The methodology is demonstrated on a large distribution network consisting of 14 pressure zones for a 5-year period.