Probabilistic modelling of water distribution networks and resilient reduction of leakages: Large scale application to the city of Patras in western Greece

Abstract

Modeling of leakages in Water Distribution Networks (WDNs) is a vital task for all water related professionals and experts towards the development of management practices and strategies, which aim at the reduction of water losses (leakages) and the associated financial cost and environmental footprint. In the current work we develop an integrated, theoretically founded, and easily applicable probabilistic framework for resilient reduction of leakages in WDNs, which combines: a) a set of conceptually and methodologically different probabilistic approaches for minimum night flow (MNF) estimation in WDNs based on statistical metrics (Serafeim et al., 2021 and 2022a), and b) a combination of statistical clustering and hydraulic modeling techniques for the rigorous and user unbiased partitioning of WDNs into pressure management areas (PMAs) or district metered areas (DMAs), which seeks for minimization of leakages while maintaining an acceptable level of the network’s hydraulic resilience (Serafeim et al., 2022b). The efficiency of the introduced framework is tested via a large-scale real-world application to the water distribution network of the City of Patras, the largest smart water network (SWN) in Greece, which covers an area of approximately 27 km2 and serves more than 213000 consumers (based on data from the Hellenic Statistical Authority and the Municipality of Patras), with more than 700 km of pipeline grid (mainly HDPE and PVC pipes).AcknowledgementsThe research work was supported by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (H.F.R.I.) under the “First Call for H.F.R.I. Research Projects to support Faculty members and Researchers and the procurement of high-cost research equipment grant” (Project Number: 1162).ReferencesSerafeim, A.V., Kokosalakis, G., Deidda, R., Karathanasi I. and Langousis A (2021) Probabilistic estimation of minimum night flow in water distribution networks: large-scale application to the city of Patras in western Greece, Stoch. Environ. Res. Risk. Assess., https://doi.org/10.1007/s00477-021-02042-9.Serafeim, A.V., G. Kokosalakis, R. Deidda, I. Karathanasi and A. Langousis (2022) Probabilistic Minimum Night Flow Estimation in Water Distribution Networks and Comparison with the Water Balance Approach: Large-Scale Application to the City Center of Patras in Western Greece, Water, 14, 98, https://doi.org/10.3390/w14010098.Serafeim, A.V., G. Kokosalakis, R. Deidda, N. Th. Fourniotis and A. Langousis (2022) Combining statistical clustering with hydraulic modeling for resilient reduction of water loses in water distribution networks: Large scale application to the city of Patras in Western Greece, Water, 14(21), 3493. https://doi.org/10.3390/w14213493.