ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Water distribution systems are designed to deliver water from a source in the required quantity, quality and at satisfactory pressure to individual customers. These systems must be designed and operated so as to: minimise energy use; limit water losses (leakage and notaccounted-for water); minimise the number and consequences of pipe failures; make most effective use of the existing assets; and still meet customers’ needs in terms of water quality and quantity. Optimization of such systems has been receiving quite some attention in the literature and a large number of mathematical techniques have been developed and applied to water distribution system optimization problems. However, despite early claims of optimization, there has been limited evidence of wide acceptance of water distribution optimization tools. By presenting three case studies in which optimization was used in a multi-objective context (trading off costs against benefits), this papers goes some way to demonstrate the advances in optimal design and management of water distribution systems achieved in the last decade or so. The first case study shows how optimal design can include pipe decisions, tank sizing, tank sitting, and pump operation schedules, by incorporating both capital and operational costs and considering benefits (reliability) as a second objective. The second study shows why risk optimization is preferred to reliability optimization for water distribution systems. Finally, in the third study the benefits of burst reduction achieved by mains rehabilitation were evaluated by a multi-objective optimization model over a short-term planning horizon (taken to be one year in this study).
