District metered area design through multicriteria and multiobjective optimization

Abstract

The design of district metered areas (DMA) in potable water supply systems is of paramount importance for water utilities to properly manage their systems. Concomitant to their main objective, namely deliver quality water to consumers, the benefits include leakage reduction and prompt reaction in cases of natural or malicious contamination events. Given the structure of a water distribution network (WDN), graph theory is the basis for DMA design, and clustering algorithms can be applied to perform the partitioning. However, such sectorization entails a number of network modifications (installing cut-off valves and metering and control devices) involving costs and operation changes, which have to be carefully studied and optimized. Given the complexity of WDNs, optimization is usually performed using metaheuristic algorithms. In turn, optimization may be single or multiple-objective. In this last case, a large number of solutions, frequently integrating the Pareto front, may be produced. The decision maker has eventually to choose one among them, what may be tough task. Multi-criteria decision methods may be applied to support this last step of the decision-making process. In this paper DMA design is addressed by: i) proposing a modified k-means algorithm for partitioning; ii) using a multiobjective particle swarm optimization to suitably place partitioning devices; iii) using fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) to weight the four objective functions considered; and iv) using technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) to rank the Pareto solutions to support the decision. This joint approach is applied in a case of a well-known WDN of the literature, and the results are discussed.

Partitioning of Water Distribution Network into District Metered Areas Using Existing Valves

“…Since multi-objective optimization models end up with multiple solutions for DMAs identification, multi-criteria decision-making tools such as Analytical and Hierarchical Process (AHP), TOPSIS, etc. have been used in recent studies [15,29,30].…”

Uptake and Dissemination of Multi-Criteria Decision Support Methods in Civil Engineering—Lessons from the Literature

“…The optimal layout of district metering areas has been done by combining a k-means clustering algorithm, see [150], with MCDA methods such as AHP or TOPSIS using four criteria (cost, pressure, resilience and water quality) [151]. MCDA has also been used in selecting river water transfer options in Iran using AHP with 14 criteria grouped under 4 headings (environmental, economic, technical and socio-cultural) [152].…”

Application of Multi-Objective Optimization and Graph Theory Algorithms to Achieve Efficient and Adaptable Partitioning of District Metered Areas in Water Distribution Networks

“…DMAs are established by using instruments such as gate valves (closed valves) for isolation and flow meters for measuring inflows and outflows (Bui et al, 2022). These DMAs are utilized for facilitating operational management which encompasses cost and energy minimization (Zhang et al, 2019;Giudicianni et al, 2020), leakage control (Creaco and Haidar, 2019;Shekofteh et al, 2020b;Zhang et al, 2021), pressure control (Gomes et al, 2011), contamination prevention (Lifshitz and Ostfeld, 2018;Di Nardo et al, 2013), water quality monitoring (Ciaponi et al, 2019), optimal sensor placement (Raei et al, 2018;Ciaponi et al, 2019), risk reduction (Palleti et al, 2018), reliability attainment (Mu et al, 2021), and ensuring water supply in adequate quantity and quality (Bianchotti et al, 2021;Rahmani et al, 2018;Brentan et al, 2021;Zeidan et al, 2021).…”