Abstract
A water distribution network (WDN) is an indispensable element of civil infrastructure that provides fresh water for domestic use, industrial development, and fire-fighting. However, in a large and complex network, operation and management (O&M) can be challenging. As a technical initiative to improve O&M efficiency, the paradigm of “divide and conquer” can divide an original WDN into multiple subnetworks. Each subnetwork is controlled by boundary pipes installed with gate valves or flow meters that control the water volume entering and leaving what are known as district metered areas (DMAs). Many approaches to creating DMAs are formulated as two-phase procedures, clustering and sectorizing, and are called water network partitioning (WNP) in general. To assess the benefits and drawbacks of DMAs in a WDN, we provide a comprehensive review of various state-of-the-art approaches, which can be broadly classified as: (1) Clustering algorithms, which focus on defining the optimal configuration of DMAs; and (2) sectorization procedures, which physically decompose the network by selecting pipes for installing flow meters or gate valves. We also provide an overview of emerging problems that need to be studied.
Highlights
A water distribution network (WDN) supplies drinking water by maintaining pressures and flow rates
In a similar methodology proposed by Alvisi and Franchini [60], breadth-first search (BFS) defined the location of possible nodes to form an assigned number of district metered areas (DMAs) and the shortest path distance from each source to the nodes was simultaneously estimated to determine the set of boundary pipes for each DMA
Evaluation of DMAs scenarios after sectorization must guarantee that hydraulic indicators are at an acceptable or higher threshold compared with the original network
Summary
A water distribution network (WDN) supplies drinking water by maintaining pressures and flow rates. Dividing a network into small DMAs will identify bursts quickly, maintain total leakage at a lower level, and reduce the time required to identify device failures This leads to increased investment and operational costs in terms of new flow meters and valves [11]. The optimal number of DMAs does not grow significantly with the network size Such a relationship hints that, from a connectivity point of view, the increase of WDN size has more effects on the size of the DMA rather than the number of DMAs. The number of water sources supplying each DMA needs to be considered in the design process, as each source must be fitted with a flow meter. Sectorization [36,37]
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