Reliability Indicators for Water Distribution System Design: Comparison
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 140, Issue 2
Abstract
When designing a water distribution system (WDS), it is imperative that the reliability of the network is taken into consideration. It is possible to directly evaluate the reliability of a WDS, although the calculation processes involved are computationally intensive and thus undesirable for some state-of-the-art, iterative design approaches (such as optimization). Consequently, interest has recently grown in the use of reliability indicators, which are simpler and faster to evaluate than direct reliability methods. In this study, two existing reliability indicators, the Todini resilience index and entropy for WDS, are examined by analyzing their relationships with different subcategories of reliability, namely the mechanical (network tolerance to pipe failure) and hydraulic reliability (network tolerance to demand change). The analysis is performed by generating comparable solutions through multiobjective optimization of cost against the chosen indicators using the well known Anytown WDS benchmark as a case study. It is found that WDS solutions with high entropy have increased mechanical reliability, yet are expensive and have poor hydraulic operation and water quality. In contrast, high resilience index networks are relatively cheaper and present reasonable hydraulic operational performance, yet have limited improvement in mechanical reliability. Both indicators appear to be correlated to hydraulic reliability, but each has its own associated disadvantages. Including minimum surplus head as an additional objective in the optimization of the reliability indicators appeared to improve the performance. When optimized together, a trade-off between the two indicators is identified, implying that significantly increasing both simultaneously is not possible, and thus a new indicator is recommended to account for both the mechanical and hydraulic reliability while ensuring reasonable standards of hydraulic operation.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the U.K. Engineering and Physical Science Research Council as part of the Urban Futures Project (EP/F007426/1).
References
Atkinson, S., Farmani, R., Memon, F. A., and Butler, D. (2011). “Comparing reliability indicators for water distribution networks with a future perspective.” Proc., Computing and Control for the Water Industry 2011, Exeter, U.K.
Awumah, K., Goulter, I., and Bhatt, S. (1990). “Assessment of reliability in water distribution networks using entropy based measures.” Stochastic Hydrol. Hydraul., 4(4), 309–320.
Baños, R., Reca, J., Martínez, J., Gil, C., and Márquez, A. (2011). “resilience indexes for water distribution network design: A performance analysis under demand uncertainty.” Water Resour. Manage., 25(10), 2351–2366.
Centre for Water Systems (CWS). (2004). “Benchmark networks for design and optimisation of water distribution networks.” 〈http://www.exeter.ac.uk/cws/benchmarks〉 (Mar. 01, 2011).
Deb, K. (2009). Multi-objective optimization using evolutionary algorithms, Wiley.
Deb, K., Pratap, A., Agarwal, S., and Meyarivan, T. (2000). “A fast and elitist multiobjective genetic algorithm: NSGA-II.” Technical Rep. 200001, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur Genetic Algorithms Laboratory (KanGAL), Kanpur, India.
di Nardo, A., Greco, R., Santonastaso, G. F., and di Natale, M. (2010). “Resilience and entropy indices for water supply network sectorization in district meter areas.” 9th Int. Conf. on Hydroinformatics,.HIC, Tianjin, China.
Farmani, R., Walters, G. A., and Savic, D. A. (2005). “Trade-off between total cost and reliability for Anytown water distribution network.” J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 161–171.
Jayaram, N., and Srinivasan, K. (2008). “Performance-based optimal design and rehabilitation of water distribution networks using life cycle costing.” Water Resour. Res., 44(1), W01417.
Lansey, K. E. (2006). “The evolution of optimizing water distribution system applications.” 8th Annual Water Distribution Systems Analysis Symp, Cincinnati, OH.
Maier, H. R., Lence, B. J., Tolson, B. A., and Foschi, R. O. (2001). “First-order reliability method for estimating reliability, vulnerability, and resilience.” Water Resour. Res., 37(3), 779–790.
Ostfeld, A. (2004). “Reliability analysis of water distribution systems.” J. Hydroinf., 6(4), 281–294.
Prasad, T. D., and Park, N.-S. (2004). “Multiobjective genetic algorithms for design of water distribution networks.” J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 73–82.
Raad, D. N., Sinske, A. N., and van Vuuren, J. H. (2010). “Comparison of four reliability surrogate measures for water distribution systems design.” Water Resour. Res., 46(5), W05524.
Reca, J., Martínez, J., Baños, R., and Gil, C. (2008). “Optimal design of gravity-fed looped water distribution networks considering the resilience index.” J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 234–238.
Rossman, L. A., ed. (2000). EPANET users manual, U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati.
Saldarriaga, J. G., and Serna, M. A., (2007). “Resilience analysis as part of optimal cost design of water distribution networks.” Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2007, ASCE, Reston, VA.
Setiadi, Y., Tanyimboh, T. T., and Templeman, A. B. (2005). “Modelling errors, entropy and the hydraulic reliability of water distribution systems.” Adv. Eng. Softw., 36(11–12), 780–788.
Tanyimboh, T. T., and Templeman, A. B. (1993). “Calculating maximum entropy flows in networks.” J. Oper. Res. Soc., 44(4), 383–396.
Todini, E. (2000). “Looped water distribution networks design using a resilience index based heuristic approach.” Urban Water, 2(2), 115–122.
Wagner, J. M., Shamir, U., and Marks, D. H. (1988). “Water distribution reliability: Simulation methods.” J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 276–294.
Walski, T. M., et al. (1987). “Battle of the network models: Epilogue.” J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 191–203.
Walski, T. M. (2001). “The wrong paradigm—Why water distribution optimization doesn’t work.” J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 203–205.
Yassin-Kassab, A., Templeman, A. B., and Tanyimboh, T. T. (1999). “Calculating maximum entropy flows in multi-source, multi-demand networks.” Eng. Optim., 31(6), 695–729.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 140 • Issue 2 • February 2014
Pages: 160 - 168
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 21, 2012
Accepted: Jul 3, 2012
Published online: Jan 15, 2014
Published in print: Feb 1, 2014
Discussion open until: Jun 15, 2014
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.