Abstract
Many water supply systems, conceived to operate in centralized manner, face difficulties to adapt to dynamic changes, such as population growth, city extension, and industrial development. Decentralization of these systems may be an effective solution. Known techniques for distribution network sectorization design can help to achieve such a goal, but this has not been recognized in the literature. None of those known techniques considers the conversion of a centralized system to a decentralized one. In this paper, two new distinct yet complementary methodologies for water supply system decentralization by distribution network sectorization are proposed and implemented in a software decision support tool freely available on internet. The first methodology identifies the main flow paths from water sources to some strategic nodes and considers the nodes in these paths as new potential sources for dividing the rest of the network. The second methodology sectorizes the network according to the contribution of sources to the consumption at nodes, based on mass balance equations for the transport of a hypothetical conservative constituent in a steady state. Both methods were applied to two real network models. The results obtained were better, for decentralizing the supply, compared to those obtained by other methodologies proposed in the literature.
Highlights
Water and energy are essential resources related to the life and economy of any society.The protection and conservation of water is essential because it is a limited resource, and we depend on it
Populations in most countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) enjoy high levels of access to centralized networked systems of water supply and sanitation
Water in the world is increasingly scarce; countries that already suffer from this scarcity are looking for new alternatives, such as its reuse and the transformation of centralized water systems to decentralized ones
Summary
Water and energy are essential resources related to the life and economy of any society.The protection and conservation of water is essential because it is a limited resource, and we depend on it. Water security is complex and multi-faceted, due to constant population growth, land use changes, migration to cities, floods, droughts, and other hydrological effects related to the climatic change that affect its availability, quality, and quantity [1]. Faced with these challenges, there is great concern whether current water supply in its conventional, highly interconnected centralized system form will be able to adequately manage the service in many places around the world [2]. Developing countries generally cannot build centralized water supply and sanitation infrastructure for their entire population, due to lack of money in the first place. Governments around the world, researchers, and private industry are considering new alternatives to supply water, such as grey water reuse and water supply system decentralization, from a technical, socioeconomic, environmental, and institutional perspective, in both OECD and developing nations [4]
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