Visual analytic hierarchical process for in situ identification of leakage risk in urban water distribution network

Abstract

Assessment and early warning of leakage risk in the water distribution network are important for securing urban sustainable development. However, the identification of high leakage areas in urban water distribution networks lacks visual model-driven approaches. In the current study, the model parameters of the water distribution network (i.e., leakage point density, pipe age and material, road load, and average pressure of the pipe network) were collected in Haidian Island, Hainan Province, China as a case. The virtual district metering area (V-DMA) was used to modularize the water distribution network. A visual analytic hierarchical process (V-AHP) based on the V-DMA was established for identifying the leakage high-risk areas in the V-DMA. The first and second-level discriminant matrices (i.e., subjective and objective weights, respectively) were calculated based on the model parameters. Integration of V-AHP with V-DMA reveals insight into high leakage areas of urban water distribution networks, which was consistent with in-situ observations. Overall, this study provides a simple, efficient, and practically applicable method for identifying the leakage areas in water distribution networks.