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Water distribution system failure: a framework for forensic analysis

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Abstract

The main purpose of a water distribution system (WDS) is to deliver safe water of desirable quality, quantity and continuity to consumers. However, in many cases, a WDS fails to fulfill its goal owing to structural and associated hydraulic failures and/or water quality failures. The impact of these failures can be reduced significantly if preventive actions are taken based on their potential of occurrences or if a failure occurs and is detected within a minimum period of time after its occurrence. The aim of this research was to develop a forensic system for WDS failures. As part of the proposed forensic analysis, a framework has been developed, which investigates structural and associated hydraulic failures as well as water quality failures and integrates all failure investigation under a single platform. Under this framework, four different models have been developed to evaluate and identify structural and associated hydraulic failures and water quality failures. If a failure is detected in the system, the framework is capable of identifying the most probable location of the failure. To investigate the effectiveness of the proposed framework, the developed models have been tested and implemented in different WDSs.

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Notes

  1. According to the International Water Association (IWA), nonrevenue water (NRW) is water that has been produced and is “lost” before it reaches the customer. The most common causes of NRW are leakage and burst pipes, illegal connections, unbilled and unmetered water, meter inaccuracies and so on. NRW increases water demand, sewer loading and the risk of contaminant intrusion, but does not increase revenues.

  2. The term index of leakage propensity (ILP) is the ratio of deviation of monitored flow from the most likely value to deviation of extreme value from the most likely value.

  3. A suspected origin list consists of a set of selected nodes based on any prior information or all the nodes existing in the water distribution system which could be potential origin of the identified contaminant ingress.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) under the Strategic Project Grants program. The authors would like to express sincere appreciation to the anonymous reviewers for their comments, which helped to improve the quality of the article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Okanagan School of Engineering, The University of British Columbia, 3333 University Way, Kelowna, BC, V1V 1V7, Canada

    M. Shafiqul Islam, Rehan Sadiq, Homayoun Najjaran, Alex Francisque & Mina Hoorfar

  2. École supérieure d’aménagement du territoire, Université Laval, Québec City, QC, Canada

    Manuel J. Rodriguez & Alex Francisque

Authors
  1. M. Shafiqul Islam
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  2. Rehan Sadiq
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  3. Manuel J. Rodriguez
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  4. Homayoun Najjaran
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  5. Alex Francisque
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  6. Mina Hoorfar
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Correspondence to Rehan Sadiq.

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Islam, M.S., Sadiq, R., Rodriguez, M.J. et al. Water distribution system failure: a framework for forensic analysis. Environ Syst Decis 34, 168–179 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10669-013-9464-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10669-013-9464-3

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