Optimal Design of Intermittent Water Distribution Network Considering Network Resilience and Equity in Water Supply

Abstract

In urban areas of developing countries, due to industrialization and population growth, water demand has been increasing significantly, thereby increasing stress on the existing water distribution systems (WDSs). Under these circumstances, maintaining equity in the allocation of water becomes a significant challenge. When building an intermittent water distribution system, it is important to provide a minimum level of supply that is acceptable as well as water supply equity. A non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) is employed for the optimal design of an intermittent water distribution network (WDN). Network resilience is taken as a measure of reliability (In), while the uniformity coefficient (CU) is taken as a measure of equity in the water supply. Maximizing network resilience, uniformity coefficient, and minimization of cost of the network are considered as the objectives in the multi-objective optimization model. Pressure-driven analysis (PDA) is used for the hydraulic simulation of the network. The NSGA-II model is applied and demonstrated over two water distribution networks taken from the literature. The results indicate that reliability and equity in WDNs can be accomplished to a reasonable extent with minimal cost.