Validating a Methodology for Generating Water Infrastructure Network Models

Water distribution networks are critical infrastructure systems that deliver water at expected levels of quality, quantity, and pressure across a wide geography to diverse water users. Systems analysis tools, including modeling and optimization, are vital in developing designs and management strategies for building and operating pipe networks. Water utilities need to protect data to manage infrastructure security, resulting in limited accessibility of water distribution network models that can be used to develop insight for cities. Existing methods generate pipe network models that can be used in research to test simulation and optimization approaches for managing infrastructure. Model generating methods use open-source data as input and apply mixed integer linear programming (MILP) to size pipes. This research extends existing model generating methods by including additional open-source tile map datasets and data describing water infrastructure components, such as water towers. The MILP method is linked with the EPANET hydraulic solver to validate hydraulic assumptions and assess the accuracy of the MILP approach to calculate pressures. The method is demonstrated in this research to generate a representative network for cities using readily available open-source data. This tool can aid researchers in developing and testing water management strategies.