Application of rehabilitation and active pressure control strategies for leakage reduction in a case-study network

The paper discusses the results of a simulation analysis to evaluate the potential of rehabilitation measures and active pressure control strategies for leakage reduction in a water distribution network (WDN) in southern Italy. The analysis was carried out by using a simulation model developed under the EPANET-MATLAB environment. The model was preliminarily calibrated based on pressure and flow measurements acquired during a field monitoring campaign in two districts of the WDN. Three different scenarios of leakage reduction including (i) pipe rehabilitation (scenario S1), (ii) implementation of pressure local control (S2), and (iii) introduction of remote real-time pressure control (RTC) (S3) were simulated and compared with the current scenario of network operation (S0). Results of the simulations revealed that a combination of the used strategies can improve network performance by a significant reduction of water leakage. Specifically, 16.7%, 35.0%, and 37.5% leakage reductions (as compared to S0) can be obtained under scenarios S1, S2, and S3, respectively.