Spatial Rule-Based Expert System for Sensor Network Planning in Rural Water Supply Systems, Kentucky

Meeting water quality and security objectives for a water utility is a challenging task. An Emergency Response Plan (ERP) for water supply systems is now required under the Bioterrorism Act of 2002 in the US. The need for thoughtful and comprehensive planning for prevention, mitigation, response and recovery from an event became even clearer recently. As part of this process, each US utility will incorporate the results of their Vulnerability Assessment (VA) into an existing or new ERP. This could result in a need to deploy a suite of sensors in the drinking water networks to replace the traditional manual sampling campaigns. However, rural communities that have very little resources might not be able to come up a solid ERP. The goal of this paper is to present the architecture of a spatial rule-based expert system for decision support of sensor deployment in local water utilities. It presents the integration of knowledge acquisition of rule base and ontology of sensors for structuring an effective sensor network for two rural communities in Kentucky. VA for these rural water utilities can then be made possible with respect to the targeted chemicals and microorganisms in the tap water systems.