Water Distributions Systems Analysis: Patterns in Supply-Pipe Leakage

Failure in residential supply pipes (the final stage of waters distribution journey) is a comparatively rare event. However, there are many such pipes so the aggregate of these failures can have a significant impact on overall network demand. On a mature network there are various failure modes; some can persist without being obvious to the householder. This Paper outlines analysis of supply-pipe leakage patterns in over 2000 accurately-logged domestic sites. The meters are located at the boundary box and logged every 15 minutes. Many types of property are logged and some demographics are known; often several years data is available for analysis. The frequent logging allows persistent supply-pipe leakage and wastage to be differentiated from intermittent final demand. A model has been developed to allow the life-cycle of supply-pipe leakage to be studied using this data. The analysis also shows the distribution of loss-rates from such leaks and the effect of pressure variation to be examined. The Paper concludes with some observations on the economics of detecting and repairing supply pipe leakage on the basis of the panel data.