Systems Analysis in Water‐Distribution Network Design: From Theory to Practice

Review of the use of system‐analysis techniques, and in particular optimization, to design water‐distribution networks reveals that in spite of the considerable development of models in the literature they have not been accepted into practice. This lack of acceptance is present even though a competitive evaluation of the component design models has shown them to be capable of designing realistic networks. The lack of acceptance is attributed primarily to the absence of suitable packaging to make the algorithms useful in a design office environment. This evidence suggests that, from a practice point of view, there is relatively little need for further development of these component design models, other than the packaging. Reliability analysis in water‐distribution network design has not yet entered practice either. In contrast to the component size problem, reliability analysis has not been accepted primarily because of a lack of reliability measure that is both comprehensive in its interpretation of reliability and computationally feasible. More research is needed in this area before reliability can be explicitly incorporated into design procedures. Development of decision support systems (DSS) incorporating optimization and classical simulation models with an interactive graphics capability is seen as being a major priority for future research in the field, particularly if optimization approaches are to become more common in design practice. These DSSs can assist the designer in including and evaluating reliability and generating alternative solutions.