Aggregation of Water Distribution Systems for Contamination Detection

This study describes the methodology and application of a conjunctive hydraulic and water quality aggregation scheme for water distribution systems. The method outcome is a reduced (i.e., aggregated) network having fewer nodes and links which is equivalent to the original system in both the hydraulics (i.e., same nodes heads) and quality (i.e., same nodes concentrations). For the hydraulic part the approach is based on an existing methodology of reducing the linearized model of the full non-linear system while retrieving its non-linear properties, while for the water quality portion the depth-first search technique is invoked to select the minimum number of nodes and links which should retain at the reduced system. The methodology is demonstrated using two example applications. This paper was presented at the 8th Annual Water Distribution Systems Analysis Symposium which was held with the generous support of Awwa Research Foundation (AwwaRF).