Scenarios of Contaminant Diffusion on a Medium Size Urban Water Distribution Network

Heightened concern over potential acts of sabotage against water distribution systems is imparting greater importance to the conceptualization of contaminant migration and the value of simulating contaminant dispersion scenarios which are as realistic as possible and improve the safety of water distribution networks. A typical urban water distribution network presents various scenarios of pipe aging, leakage, etc., that heighten the uncertainty surrounding potential impacts of network contamination, sometimes biasing efforts undertaken by water companies to guarantee a standard quality of potable water. Modelling potential contamination of water distribution systems offers three main advantages: (1) assessment of how dramatically the situation can evolve after a nefarious action or accident, (2) guidance on how to strategically implement a warning system for revealing any dangerous contamination and (3) planning support for the maintenance of those pipes which bear an influence on diffusion and compromise network safety. In this paper, a pressure-driven algorithm with an embedded leakage model is joined with the contaminant decay model of EPANET 2 and is applied to a case study of a real water distribution network. In particular, the tested network represents a typical urban-scale scenario, where different types of users, such as domestic, industrial, commercial and public coexist.