A heuristic design support methodology based on graph theory for district metering of water supply networks

The management of existing water supply networks can be substantially improved by permanent water district metering (WDM) which is one of the most efficient techniques for water loss detection and pressure management. However, WDM may compromise water system performance, since some pipes are usually closed to delimit districts in order not to have too many metering stations, to decrease costs and simplify water balance. This may reduce the reliability of the whole system and not guarantee the delivery of water at the different network nodes. In practical applications, the design of district meter areas (DMAs) is generally based on empirical approaches or on limited field experiences. In this work a design support methodology (DSM) is proposed, which helps to identify the position of flow meters and of boundary valves needed to define permanent DMAs. The DSM is based on graph theory and is applied to a test case.