Bursts Identification in Water Distribution Systems

The leakage reduction problem as a whole is complex and requires co-ordinated actions in different areas of water network management, such as: direct detection and repair of existing bursts, general pipe rehabilitation programmes and operational pressure control. Water companies undertake a mixture of these complimentary actions. General pipe rehabilitation is the most costly and long term action, but is undertaken to improve a number of different factors including leakage and water quality. Operational pressure control is a cost-effective action for reducing leakage over whole sub-networks, and for reducing the risk of further leaks by smoothing pressure variations and is the subject of ongoing research. Detection and repair actions are targeted at sub-networks where bursts are present. Benefits of quick burst repair include reduced water losses, reduced disruption to traffic, reduced consequent losses (e.g. from flooding), and also reduced disruption to customers' supplies, which is an important water industry performance measure. The existing methods typically use passive identification approach whilst the presented approach is based on the active identification procedure.