Increasing Water Security: An Algorithm to Improve Water Distribution Performance

Water Distribution Systems (WDSs) are indispensable infrastructures for urban societies. Due to vitality of continuous supply of drinking water in urban areas, it is necessary to have a performance evaluation and monitoring system to provide the expected level of security in water distribution systems. A main weakness point of these systems is the physical break of pipes which results in high level of water loss, pollution risk and public unsatisfactory. In this study, a framework is developed to increase physical water supply security in urban areas. For this purpose, a physical vulnerability index (PVI) is developed for evaluation of physical statues of water mains. In quantifying PVI, pipe characteristics and bedding soil specifications are considered. The importance of these factors on PVI is determined using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). In system performance evaluation, the pipe role in system performance is incorporated regarding pipe location in WDS, distance of pipe from reservoir and average pressure of pipe. Then, System Physical Performance Index (SPVI) is evaluated. An optimization algorithm is employed to determine ways to improve the system performance through enhancing the physical condition of the pipe in the system at a minimum cost. The genetic algorithm is employed for solving the optimization model. A global sensitivity analysis method named FAST, is used for sensitivity analysis to incorporate the correlation between different parameters in analysis. The proposed framework is applied to a case study located in Tehran metropolitan area. The results of this study show the significant value of the proposed algorithm in supporting decision makers to better choose vulnerable pipes for rehabilitation practices in order to decrease system vulnerability against physical failures.     

Comparing the Effects of Different Daily and Sub-Daily Downscaling Approaches on the Response of Urban Stormwater Collection Systems

Water Resources Management - Change in the spatiotemporal pattern of precipitation is one the most important effects of climate change. This may result in considerable changes in urban flooding and...     

Reliability Improved Stochastic Dynamic Programming for Reservoir Operation Optimization

Stochastic Dynamic Programming (SDP) is widely used in reservoir operation problems. Besides its advantages, a few drawbacks have leaded many studies to improve its structure. Handling the infeasible conditions and curse of dimensionality are two major challenges in this method. The main goal of this paper is proposing a new method to avoid infeasible conditions and enhance the solution efficiency with new discretization procedure. For this purpose, an optimization module is incorporated into regular SDP structure, so that, near optimal values of state variables are determined based on the available constraints. The new method (RISDP) employs reliability concept to maximize the reservoir releases to satisfy the downstream demands. Applying the proposed technique improves the reservoir operating policies compared to regular SDP policies with the same assumptions of discretization. Simulation of reservoir operation in a real case study indicates about 15% improvement in objective function value and elimination of infeasible conditions by using RISDP operating policies.     

Temporal and Spatial Assessment of Supply and Demand of the Water-yield Ecosystem Service for Water Scarcity Management in Arid to Semi-arid Ecosystems

Water scarcity is one of the problems affecting people’s livelihoods in arid and semi-arid areas, requiring a sustainable balance between water demands and water resources. This study was carried out to assess temporal and spatial distribution of water supply and demand in order to help managers to overcome water scarcity in Jiroft basin, southeastern Iran. Spatial supply and demand of water were mapped and standardized rainfall index (SPI) was used to assess drought for a 20 years period (1994–2014). Supply and demand of water were matched in 23% of the basin area, mostly concentrated in the cold zones. Water supply was reduced up to 80% during dry years, declining water supply-demand matching to 5% of the basin area. Shrub-grass rangelands and deciduous woodlands were the most valuable land covers for conservation with $ 1,100 and $ 936 per hectare water prices respectively. Water value dropped more than 72% in mismanaged ecosystems (p?<?0.01). Our finding showed that water supply-demand ratio can be used as a proxy of ecosystem health and water-yield, which can provide a good information for water resources managers to reduce the threats of water scarcity in arid and semi-arid regions.