2nd WDSA/CCWI Joint Conference

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https://riunet7pre.upv.es/handle/10251/205560

The Department of Hydraulic Engineering and Environment of the Universitat Politècnica de València (Valencia Tech) is pleased to invite you to the second edition of the WDSA/CCWI Joint Conference to be held in Valencia (Spain).

This conference will bring together professionals from municipalities, consulting firms, and universities to exchange ideas about the big challenges facing the water industry.

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 127

The impact of drinking water network model spatial and temporal scale on hydraulic metrics indicating discolouration risk
(Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2024-03-06) Lokk, Reinar; Blokker, Mirjam; Boxall, Joby; Romano, Michele; Provost, Anna; Husband, Stewart
[EN] Matching model complexity to application and ensuring sufficient complexity to capture the emergent behaviour of interest is a perennial challenge. In this paper we define a model as the variables, parameters and factors that represent a particular place, time and situation, not the software or algorithms. Specifically, we explore the cross products of spatial and temporal scaling of water demands within extended period 1D network model simulations to predict the hydraulic conditions within individual drinking water pipes and the association of this with discolouration risk. High spatial scale hydraulic models investigated include mapping each customer with a unique demand node instead of the current practice of aggregated demand to nodes at the ends of pipe lengths. For demand profiling we compare top-down DMA inlet patterns at 15-minute resolution with bottom-up stochastic demand patterns down to 1 second timesteps. The value of the resulting increases in resolution of hydraulic model outputs are captured in a range of pipe specific metrics that are likely to be indicative of discolouration risk. Unlike water quality surrogate of water age or chlorine residual that aggregate time and pipe effects from source to point of interest, discolouration risk has been shown to be primarily a function of the hydraulic conditions in a specific length of pipe. Hence the additional effort to achieve high-resolution modelling simulations are perhaps warranted to manage discolouration. Results review proposed discolouration metrics by correlating with consumer reported discolouration events, showing how these change as a function of spatial and temporal resolution. For example, increasing temporal scale from 15 minutes to 1-minute results in a 15-fold increase in identifying flow reversal locations that can facilitate settling of network discolouration material and therefore pose a discolouration risk. High temporal scale is shown to capture the on/off nature of customer demands and the significant impact on peak velocities that are shown suppressed when using aggregated profiles. This work provides an indication of the optimal level of model resolution required to differentiate pipes according to discolouration risk and hence improve targeting of pro-active maintenance and discolouration management efficiency.
Discovering Differences in Iron and Manganese Behaviour in Service Reservoirs
(Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2024-03-06) Doronina, Anastasia; Husband, Stewart; Boxall, Joby; Speight, Vanessa; UKRI EPSRC
[EN] Service reservoirs (SRs) are crucial components in drinking water distribution systems (DWDSs). In the UK, regulatory monitoring is conducted infrequently at SR outlets and for disinfectant residual and bacteriological indicators only, providing limited information on SR performance and its effect on drinking water quality. In this research, long term monitoring at the inlet and outlet of multiple SRs across the UK for various water quality parameters, and analysis of accumulated material collected from SRs during maintenance activities, provided valuable information on iron and manganese behaviour in these assets. Results showed that a lower proportion of iron appears to be retained within SRs in comparison to manganese. These findings challenge the understanding of how water quality risks posed by iron and manganese (e.g., discolouration) manifest in SRs and this knowledge can be used to help inform a targeted approach specific to SRs for the proactive management of those risks.
Biofungus: fungus MBBR pilot plant on Murcia Este WWTP
(Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2024-03-06) Mena, Eva; Gadea, Alicia; Monreal-Bernal, Alfonso; López‐García, Sergio; Garre, Victoriano; Lara-Guillén, Andrés
[EN] Concerns about energy efficiency and contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) lead development of new and alternative processes. Conventional activated sludge systems have a high energy consumption and footprint. Alternative processes are nowadays implemented to reduce them. In this study, we present the results of Biofungus project. Influent wastewater is treated under real conditions and continuous operation in a two-step Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor (MBBR) pilot plant based on Mucor fungus. Several strains and spontaneous mutants of the Mucor fungus were investigated. Those showing improved growth performance, wastewater resistance and nitrate consumption rate were isolated in laboratory and used at the pilot plant. Moreover, the in-situ growth at the pilot plant of the fungus from spores is implemented at the plant as a parallel process. The obtained effluent water meets regulations requirements, showing a high COD and suspended solids (SS) removal (87% and 94% on average respectively) and total nitrogen removal of 35% on average. The Biofungus pilot plant treatment works analogous to a conventional activated sludge process. One of the difficulties observed is the retention of the fungi during the process. The volume of carriers used at the MBBR is between 25-30% of the aeration tank. They allow the fungi to grow attached to them avoiding the dilution of its concentration by flotation and loss from this tank. This stage is followed by a settling tank, where the biomass is either recirculated to the aeration tank or purged to a sludge thickener tank. The process is a two-stage process with aerobic and anoxic reactors. The Mucor fungus specialized in the nitrate consumption is dosed into the anoxic reactor after a different Mucor string has consumed the DQO at the MBBR. Both stages are connected by a primary settling tank and a secondary decanter clarifies water after anoxic stage. After this secondary decanter the treated water is obtained. The retention time on the plant is between 6 and 10 hours and the treated volume is 3,6m3/day. The Mucor fungus has proved able to eliminate high ammonia and nitrate concentrations in sort periods of time, resulting on consumption rates of 1,6 mgN-NO3/h. Finally, its resistance to CECs has been evaluated under a wide range of contaminants including drugs, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and hormones. Almost no toxicity to contaminant concentrations as high as 20 mg/l was observed. The water treatment performance has been also tested with a combination of CECs at 200µg/l and no influence has been observed after a week over the effluent water quality.
Efficiency analysis and evaluation model development of water distribution system rebuilding project using DEA method
(Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2024-03-06) park, haekeum; Kim, Kibum; Hyung, Jinseok; Kim, Taehyeon; Koo, Jayong; Ministry of environment (South Korea)
[EN] The water supply facilities of Korea have achieved a rapid growth, along with the other social infrastructures consisting a city, due to the phenomenon of urbanization according to economic development. However, as an adverse effect of rapid growth, the quantity of aged water supply pipes are increasing rapidly, while pipe aging causes water suspension accidents and the scale of such accidents is getting large. Accordingly, the Ministry of Environment has been promoting the local water distribution system rebuilding project since 2017 to build a block system, pipe network maintenance work, leak management work, etc. Related projects are being promoted. In this study, analyzed the efficiency of the improvement of the revenue water ratio according to the DEA(Data Envelopment Analysis) method-based water distribution system rebuilding project, and develop an evaluation model for the water distribution system rebuilding project using the efficiency analysis results.In this study, DEA analysis was performed by selecting 15 local governments that showed cost-effectiveness among 20 local governments that were carrying out the performance evaluation for the 2017 rebuilding project. In this study, DEA analysis was performed considering the number of DMUs secured three times or more than the sum of input and output factors suggested in Banker et al.(1984)’s previous study.The input indicators of this study are the values derived by dividing the block system construction cost, pipe network maintenance cost, leak management cost invested for the local water distribution system rebuilding project from 2017 to 2020 by the lengths of the project target water distribution pipes. As the output indicators, the rate of increase in the revenue water ratio, which was changed according to the input project cost, was applied.In addition, a project cost evaluation model was developed for the improvement of the revenue water ratio by using the optimal efficiency point derived through the efficiency analysis with the effect of improving the revenue water ratio as a calculation index. For model development, multiple regression analysis was performed according to the step-selection method that included only independent variables with high explanatory power that had an influence on the dependent variable in the regression model to develop the model.As such, in this study, the efficiency analysis of local governments performing the local water distribution system rebuilding project was performed, and a project cost evaluation model was developed to improve the revenue water ratio. It is judged that the methodology and development model used in this study can be utilized in the analysis and evaluation of the project efficiency of the additional target area of the local water distribution system rebuilding project in the future.
Unsteady Friction Modeling Technique for Lagrangian Approaches in Transient Simulations
(Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2024-03-06) Zeidan, Mohamad; Ostfeld, Avi
[EN] This study tackles the problem of simulating the head damping effect in transient flows when modeled in the Lagrangian approach rather than Eulerian. The Lagrangian approach normally requires orders of magnitude fewer calculations, which allows very large systems to be solved in an expeditious manner, and it has the additional advantage of using a simple physical model as the basis for its development. Moreover, since it is continuous in both time and space, the method is less sensitive to the structure of the network and the length of the simulation process, resulting in improved computational efficiency. Nevertheless, most recent studies used an Eulerian approach when simulating the systems transient response (e.g., method of characteristics), thus focused on developing and improving different computational routines for modeling and simulating unsteady friction models that are better fixated for Eulerian methods and are not suited for Lagrangian ones. One-dimensional methods of representing unsteady contributions to skin friction based on instantaneous acceleration have a long track record (e.g., Daily et al. 1956, Carstens and Roller 1959). And it is still the most popular method in software used for practical simulations, despite it cannot accurately depict the system's transient responses without additional calibrations and tunings. However, the more accurate models (e.g., Brunone 2000) are not suited for the Lagrangian approach. The lack of a mesh structure in the Lagrangian approach makes it challenging to consider the convective acceleration terms in addition to the local acceleration. Therefore, there is a need for a more accurate friction model that is suited for Lagrangian methods without compromising their performance. Unfortunately, such a model is yet to be published in the literature. This study presents a new friction modeling technique that compensates for both the local and convective acceleration terms for the Lagrangian transient modeling approach, without compromising the computational time. Additionally, fixating only on the Eulerian approach for transient modeling and undermining the Lagrangian based models is concerning since it can provide different perspectives for developing novel solutions and tools that take advantage of transient events.
pySIMDEUM - An open-source stochastic water demand end-use model
(Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2024-03-06) Steffelbauer, David; Hillebrand, Bram; Blokker, Mirjam
[EN] Water demand is a crucial input parameter in water distribution system analysis because it can fluctuate over various temporal and spatial scales. In the past, researchers developed stochastic models that can provide realistic consumption patterns for simulations to account for those demand dynamics. Parameters for stochastic models are usually retrieved by fitting these models on smart water meter data. The stochastic demand model SIMDEUM uses an entirely different approach by generating highly realistic water demands based on (country-specific) statistical information only, without the need for measurements. While this approach makes SIMDEUM widely applicable in the water sector, its widespread usage within the community has been hindered due to its software implementation and availability. We produced pySIMDEUM, an open-source and object-oriented implementation of the SIMDEUM software in the popular and freely available programming language Python. The pySIMDEUM software package is not only publicly available for usage within the water field — it is also intended to build the cornerstone of a widespread pySIMDEUM community of active developers. We want to use the WDSA/CCWI conference to address interested researchers or practitioners in the water sector and invite them to contribute to the software package as active part of the pySIMDEUM community. We will show SIMDEUM’s history and past applications, the mathematical approach behind SIMDEUM and pySIMDEUM, where to download and install the pySIMDEUM package, the structure of the program, and a minimal example of how easily pySIMDEUM can be used to generate realistic stochastic water demand patterns from scratch. Furthermore, we will highlight possible future applications of the new pySIMDEUM tool. These applications include automatic parametrisation of pySIMDEUM parameters on smart meter data, coupling stochastic demands directly with hydraulic solvers, or how to enable city-scale stochastic demand simulations.
Dynamic edge betweenness centrality and optimal design of water distribution networks
(Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2024-03-06) Hajibabaei, Mohsen; Hesarkazzazi, Sina; Minaei, Amin; Savić, Dragan; Sitzenfrei, Robert; This study was funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): P 31104-N29
[EN] The multi-objective design of water distribution networks (WDNs) as a nonlinear optimization problem is a challenging task. With two contradicting objectives (e.g., minimizing costs and maximizing resilience), Pareto fronts of optimal solutions can be obtained with, e.g., evolutionary algorithms. However, the main drawback of these algorithms is the high computational effort required to optimize large WDNs. Recently, a highly efficient method based on complex network theory (CNT) was developed, where within seconds, a wide range of Pareto near-optimal solutions can be obtained for the design of WDNs (i.e., determining optimal diameters). The developed method is based on a customized graph measure called demand edge betweenness centrality (EBCQ). This measure is based on the frequency of occurrence of an edge in the shortest path from a source node to a demand node. In addition, EBCQ sums up the demands routed through that edge, giving a valid flow estimation for an optimal design. In the graph of a WDN, the edges can have different weights. The weighting function used for calculations can be ‘static’ or ‘dynamic’. A constant value is utilized for edge weights in the static weighting approach, while a dynamic weighting function implies that edge weights are modified when iterating through all demand nodes. In this context, using dynamic weighting functions for (i.e., dynamic ) avoids concentrating values in just a few edges (shortest-path trees) by considering redundancy in flow paths and better approximation of the hydraulic behavior. However, it is not clear how the parameters of dynamic weighting functions should be defined to achieve the best approximation of the Pareto-optimal front. This work performs a systematic investigation of dynamic weighting functions and gives guidance for optimal parameter selection. The comparative study between the CNT approach (with static and dynamic weights) and evolutionary optimizations on four WDN design problems confirms the capability of the proposed dynamic functions in providing optimal/near-optimal solutions.
On the use of SINDy for WDN
(Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2024-03-06) Castro-Gama, Mario
[EN] With the growing interest of water utilities on digitalization, running multiple scenarios can become cumbersome with limited budget and short data collections. The total number of hydraulic simulations required (usually using commercial software), becomes a burden for near real-time operation. In order to circumvent the computational burden (limitation), since a couple of decades, several Machine Learning techniques have been used to create a meta-model or surrogates of a Water Distribution Networks (WDN) based on a subset of data available through SCADA. Among the many possible surrogates a Sparse Identification of Non-linear Dynamics (SINDy) method is presented. The method is applied to two datasets: i) to obtain a surrogate of a benchmark network and ii) real data of water consumption of different District Metered Areas (DMA) of a real water utility. The method is: i) computationally inexpensive, ii) less data demanding for calibration than other modern methods, iii) parsimonious, and iv) could be used to infer physical relations among data.
Estimation of the spatial distribution of substances in Anaerobic Digestion Tanks with CFD
(Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2024-03-06) Dabiri, Soroush; Kumar, Prashant; Rauch, Wolfgang; Federal Ministry of the Republic of Austria for Agriculture, Regions and Tourism in collaboration with the Kommunalkredit Public Consulting GmbH [grant number: B801259]
[EN] Anaerobic digestion (AD) is used in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) to decompose organic matter. Highly efficient AD tanks are able to mix biochemical substances within the tank, and – in order to assess such spatial distribution of substances - a proper modelling method is necessary. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a simulation tool for modelling fluid flows in WWTPs, but there is a lack of studies on CFD modelling of hydrodynamics together with an integrated modelling of bio-kinetics due to the complexity of biochemical reactions in AD processes. The current study aims at estimating the distribution of biochemical components within an AD tank. For doing this, an integrated modelling of hydrodynamics and bio-kinetics is conducted, in order to assess mixing quality. The novelty of the work is the derivation of a new AD-related solver in an open source CFD platform. As the first step, the hydrodynamics of the fluid flow in our WWTP are estimated through iterative solution of fluid flow equations, and subsequently, by fixing the obtained velocity vector field, bio-kinetic equations are applied to the flow field. The bio-kinetics in our solver are based on ADM1, the state of the art transient model for AD process. The validation of our developed solver is done by comparing the results to a fully-mixed digester in an experimental setup. Then, the results of our hydrodynamic modelling are shown as the velocity profile and streamlines. Subsequently, regarding bio-kinetics, the concentrations of substances are estimated and plotted during the simulation time. In order to evaluate the distribution of the organic material within the tank, the uniformity index for the substances is analysed.
Advanced fire flow risk analysis using EPANET
(Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2024-03-06) Sinske, Alexander; de Klerk, Altus; van Heerden, George
[EN] A water reticulation system is key infrastructure that enables hydraulic water services. It is therefore a critical component in providing the full level of water service to a city’s consumers. Extended water outages and below minimal pressure is a risk for the water network and especially for fire flows. GLS has developed and implemented a multi-threaded client-server software application based on the latest open-source EPANET 2.2 hydraulic analysis engine which now enables city-wide fire flow risk analyses on a property-by-property basis in reasonable time. Previously it has been virtually impossible to assess the risk on a city-wide basis, for each and every property, and to consider the improvement of such risk in the master plan (MP) of the water distribution system. Hence, the focus of the MP has been the provision of flows and pressures for the peak hour demand scenario in the network. Consequently, many township developments, densifications, and land use re-zonings require a separate and focussed specific fire risk analysis to ensure the existing system is capable of providing the requisite fire flow and pressure. If not, specific additional MP items related to the fire requirements of the specific property have to be investigated and considered for implementation. The fire flow risk analysis produces a GIS-based heat map displaying a Fire Risk Compliance Score (FRCS) of areas and properties where the current system is inadequate to deliver the fire flows and pressures. Such a heat map provides valuable information that can be used to improve and prioritise the MP and minimise future additional ad-hoc analyses for specific properties or developments. The fire flow risk analysis also allows the identification of pressure management zones where adjustments to the pressure regime are required in order to ensure requisite fire flows/pressures are achieved. Various methodologies based on Pressure Driven Analysis and Demand Driven Analysis have been evaluated and tested on models from South African cities. Great care has been take to optimise the multi-threaded communication of the application with the EPANET engine to streamline performance and support concurrent hydraulic analyses. In addition, a concept of automatically creating unique fire events to reduce the number of analyses, has been introduced for large models. This has resulted in smaller cities that can be analysed on modern PCs with few processor cores in a few minutes and large cities that can be analysed in reasonable time on high-core cloud-computing platforms. Visualisation in GIS-based software greatly helps to control the analyses and interpret results visually. Critical areas can be identified on a broader scale and allows for a rational approach to decide where to focus on network augmentation, or alternatively to provide on-site fire fighting capabilities.
Dual estimation of iron oxide deposition on drinking water PVC pipes using calibrated turbidity data and brightfield microscopy in a full-scale laboratory system
(Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2024-03-06) Sass Braga, Artur; Filion, Yves
[EN] The assessment of accumulated sediments inside drinking water pipes is an important step for determining the risk of water quality deterioration for a sector of a distribution network and for scheduling the required maintenance activities that minimize this risk. Water utilities and researchers have traditionally used turbidity data collected during flushing operations to quantify the discolouration potential in isolated pipe lengths. Flushing has an elevated cost of specialized personnel, consumes large quantities of drinking water, and offers poor information about sediment conditions prior to mobilization (e.g. structure, position on the pipes). The last problem must be overcome by gaining a better understanding of the processes driving material accumulation, which might help in the development of strategies to prevent sediment deposits. In addition, a complex relationship between turbidity and SSC also makes it difficult to accurately translate turbidity units (NTU) into physical units of concentration (e.g. mg/L). This paper aims to consolidate the macroscopic estimations of sediment deposits in drinking water pipes using turbidity data and to propose a microscopic complement that provides richer data about sediment deposits at the pipe wall. The research was developed through a controlled experiment using a full-scale PVC pipe system that mimics the operational conditions of drinking water distribution systems. In the experiments, the drinking water was amended with iron oxide particles that progressively adhered to the pipe walls during 30 days of steady flow conditioning. After the conditioning period, the pipes were flushed to mobilize the sediment deposits. The SSC of water samples collected during the experiments were used to produce translation factors for the online turbidity data. Macroscopic sediment loads were estimated based on the difference between suspended sediments at the inlet and outlet of the pipe loop, while microscopic loads were estimated through the direct observation of particles on pipe wall samples using automated brightfield microscopy. Physical metrics were proposed to adequately represent the sediment load data. Results from the turbidity data analysis produced insights about the impacts of experimental conditions on the SSC translation factors, while microscopy images allowed a detailed assessment of particles deposited on the pipe walls including information about their particle size distribution and dispersion.
Modelling of Air Pocket Entrapment during Pipe Filling in Intermittent Water Supply Systems
(Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2024-03-06) Ferreira, Joao; Ferras, David; Covas, Didia; Kapelan, Zoran; Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT)
[EN] Intermittent water supply (IWS) operations frequently involve water filling and emptying cycles that are strongly influenced by air-water interaction. Storm Water Management Model (SWMM) software has been recently proposed to simulate pipe filling events in IWS systems. As the tool is conceived to simulate both free surface and pressurized flows, it also has the potential to analyse the air entrapment. However, there is no numerical model capable of accurately and efficiently simulating the air behaviour during these events, nor of predicting the locations of air pockets created during the pipe filling process.An experimental pipe rig was assembled to better understand the pipe filling process in terms of pressure variation, the propagation of the filling wave and the air entrapment locations under different initial conditions. The pipe rig has a classic reservoir-pipe-valve configuration. Different behaviours are observed in this experimental setup during the pipe filling tests. An entrapped air pocket is created at the high point for lower flow rates, which is not dragged when the pipe is full. This air pocket can go from a similarly free surface flow inside the pipe to a complete water filled flow, depending on the flow rate. For low flow rates, a high head loss is introduced due to a hydraulic jump inside the pipe. For higher flow rates, the air is dragged, no air is entrapped and only the local head losses from the change of direction at the high point are observable.Following the collected experimental data, SWMM is used to assess to which extent it can predict entrapped air pockets location and their volume. Different filling processes can occur and an air model should be included to simulate the tests carried out in the pipe rig. The results obtained show that SWMM is capable of predicting air pocket locations but not the air pocket volumes. Further research is necessary to improve SWMM in this context.
Model fast deposition of fine iron oxide particles on PVC pipe mains during the passage of a suspended particle plume in a full-scale laboratory system
(Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2024-03-06) Sass Braga, Artur; Filion, Yves
[EN] This paper aims to investigate the interplay of suspended sediment concentration (SSC) and the fluid velocity that are both responsible for the rapid formation of sediments deposits in a full-scale laboratory system with PVC pipes. The specific objectives of the paper were to: (1) estimate the average rate of iron oxide particle deposition on PVC pipes immediately after the rapid release, and during the passage of, a highly-concentrated plume of iron oxide particles that typifies discolouration events in real systems; (2) determine whether previously deposited particles on the pipe wall from the passage of previous iron oxide particle plumes affect the average rate of iron oxide deposition and attachment to the pipe wall. Experiments were realized in a test facility that mimics the operation of drinking water systems using a special design method to accurately inoculate and detect the passage of iron oxide particles through the pipes under steady flow conditions commonly found in water networks. The experiments consisted of the passage of 3 sequential waves of particles, tested for three different SSC and three different flow velocities. The results showed that increasing the inlet water quality conditions and the concentration of the particulate plume tended to increase the total deposited load while fluid velocity had a negligeable impact on the total deposited load. The results also showed that both an increase of concentration and fluid velocity produced an increase in the average deposition rate, and that this was mainly caused by the shorter conditioning period of the experiments at higher velocities. Further, the experimental results did not show any change in average particle deposition rate and attachment across the three plumes. This suggests that the presence of particle deposits from previous plumes had a negligible impact on particle deposition and attachment.
Investigation of groundwater consumption to cope with the inadequate piped water supply in continuous and intermittent supply systems: A case study in Bangalore, India
(Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2024-03-06) Priyanka, B.N.; Bharanidharan, B.; Sheetal Kumar, K.R.; Mohan Kumar, M.S.; Srinivas, V.V.; Nibgoor, Sanjana R; Kishore, Y.; Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), Government of India
[EN] Although the supply of piped water to the Indian cities is increasing, the demand is not always fulfilled. This gap in water demand and supply is usually bridged by using alternate sources of water, mostly groundwater. Bangalore, the capital city of Karnataka, is one of the fastest developing metropolitan cities in India is also facing piped water supply issues. The groundwater is the main source of alternate water supply in the city. In the present study, a District Metered Area (DMA) is selected in the Bangalore South-West division; this DMA has both intermittent and continuous water supply systems. The water distribution network (WDN) of study DMA contains four inlets and three supply zones. The first is a continuous water supply system whereas the second and third are the intermittent systems. The impact of inequitable supply in the study DMA is evaluated and the consumption of groundwater to cope with insufficient water supply is analyzed. The Lorenz Curve and Gini Coefficient are used to assess the inequity in groundwater extraction under intermittent and continuous supply zones. The data from the field flowmeters, consumer meter reading, and door-to-door questionnaire survey are used for the analysis. The questionnaire survey includes RR number, presence of wells/borewells, horsepower (HP) of the pumps used, building type, the number of inhabitants, and the floors in each building. In the continuous supply system, a questionnaire survey was untaken for 80% of the connections, whereas in the intermittent supply system random sampling was used. The questionnaire survey analysis showed that 53% of the consumers in the continuous supply system rely on piped water supply, whereas others used groundwater as well as piped water supply. The study illustrated the gap in groundwater consumption between supply zones within intermittent water supply systems as well as between intermittent and continuous water supply zones. Reliability on groundwater was high even in continuous supply systems indicating insufficient pressures resulting in unsatisfied demands. The study indicated that just increasing the access to the piped water supply to the consumers is not sufficient, the acceptable quality with adequate pressure of water should be delivered to reduce the use of groundwater. The inferences from the study can be used to regulate groundwater extraction.
Roadmap towards Smart Wastewater Treatment Facilities
(Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2024-03-06) Aguado García, Daniel; Haimi, Henri; Mulas, Michela; Corona, Francesco; Dpto. de Ingeniería Hidráulica y Medio Ambiente; Instituto Universitario de Ingeniería del Agua y del Medio Ambiente; Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería de Caminos, Canales y Puertos
[EN] To protect human health and natural ecosystems, wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) have been traditionally designed to remove pollutants from wastewater. With remarkable success WWTPs have adapted to increasingly stringent discharge limits over the years. Nowadays, municipal wastewater treatment facilities are facing a double transition. On the one hand, the transition towards sustainability and the circular water economy, in which resource recovery from wastewater (water recovery, energy recovery and nutrient recovery) plays a fundamental role for its effective implementation. Note that the incorporation of any resource recovery process in a WWTP will immediately turn it into a water resource recovery facility (WRRF). On the other hand, the digital transition, which aims at making the operation of these facilities smart and that undoubtedly could have a synergistic effect together with the paradigm shift towards the effective implementation of circular water economy. To make our current facilities smart, there is a growing interest in finding the way to convert the collected process data into intelligent actions for improving their operation. This is not an easy task for many reasons: - the harsh environment in which the instrumentation has to work (corrosive, sludgy, biofilm formation with biological activity…), - almost complete absence of metadata that would make it easy the interpretation of the process data that it is being collected and that would enable its future use, - the almost complete absence of automated data quality assurance, required to avoid “garbage in – garbage out”- the ever-increasing number of process sensors available (data overload), that must be properly processed and made easily available for further use to make them useful- large amounts of data are collected and stored in databases but not wisely used, thus, resulting in data graveyards, - the excessive cost of nutrient and organic matter sensors/analysers which moreover are labour maintenance intensive, fact that restrict their availability to the range of large facilities, thus, they are not usually available for small size facilities (which are the vast majority). - the intelligent sensors and data-driven models must be maintainable by the plant workers (not by Data scientists), - the lack of process expertise in the development of the artificial intelligent tools, - plant operators are often accustomed to their operational routines and, therefore, cultural change is needed in the organization for successful digital transition and adopting new intelligent tools. The progress in computing capabilities together with the large amount of collected process data in WWTPs have created the perfect storm for the machine learning boom we are observing, but all the aforementioned issues can make the incredible digital transition opportunity that exists today completely lost. In an attempt to avoid this disaster, this paper tries to shed light on the path towards increasing
Water Consumption variation in Latin America due to COVID-19 Pandemic
(Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2024-03-06) Ortiz, Catalina; Clavijo, William; Mahlknecht, Jürgen; Saldarriaga, Juan
[EN] To stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments all over the world have applied social distancing measures, which have drastically altered people’s lifestyles. Many studies suggest that the water sector, including its demand and supply, has been strongly affected by these regulations. The importance of hygiene practices confers a crucial role to potable water availability as an ally for tackling the spread of the virus, heightening the alteration of water demand patterns during the ongoing pandemic. Therefore, this research aimed to assess the impact of the pandemic on the water consumption patterns in four Latin-American cities and the differences among the type of users. The case studies include two Colombian and two Mexican cities known for their important industrial and touristic features. The outcomes reveal a diminishing effect on water consumption for industrial and commercial customers. Touristic cities were the most affected, even experiencing decreased domestic water demand. Understanding these changes and challenges is essential for keeping and improving the resilience of water systems in different scenarios, especially under fluctuating environmental conditions.
Domain Analysis of Water Distribution Networks
(Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2024-03-06) Ciliberti, Francesco; Laucelli, Daniele; Berardi, Luigi; Giustolisi, Orazio
[EN] Water Distribution Networks (WDNs) represent spatially organized infrastructures, whose main function is to deliver water from hydraulic sources to meet the customers’ demands and pressure requirements of the system through interconnected pipes. The time-varying water demands and the asset deterioration greatly contribute to the complexity in WDNs. Therefore, little changes of the structural layout expose the system to higher variations of WDN functioning, sometimes unpredictable to evaluate due to uncertainties of the hydraulic conditions, affecting WDNs control and management. The Complex Network Theory (CNT) has been recognized to provide a wide range of metrics for identifying the WDNs emergent behavior, only based on the analysis of the topological domain, even before using hydraulic models. This contribution deals with the application of several tailored centrality metrics, such as betweenness and edge betweenness, accounting for various combinations of the intrinsic relevance of the spatial elements of the systems, for identifying the emergent domain behavior of WDNs. The analysis has been applied to each subnetwork of a large real WDN, aimed at providing helpful indications for hydraulic model validation, identification of main pipes for improving the calibration of the system, maintenance works as well as relevance of main flow paths to plan operations.
Study on iron dispersion law and control measures of dead-end branch pipe
(Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2024-03-06) Chen, Jianxun; Gao, Jinliang; Wu, Wenyan; Wang, Guanghui; Ding, Qiang; Qi, Shihua; Li, Bo
[EN] The paper aims to investigate the dispersion law and mechanism of total iron from dead-end metal branch pipe to main pipe under the impact of hydraulic disturbance. A full scale experimental water distribution network including a transport main pipe as well as six dead-end branch was set up and computational-fluid-dynamics (CFD) simulation are adopted to study the dispersion phenomenon. The cavity flow theory is adopted to clarify the inner dispersion mechanism. Firstly, the CFD model is examined through the comparison of results between the two experimental methods under the same condition. Secondly, performing the effect of the Reynolds number in main pipe on the total dispersion concentration of iron. Thirdly, the characteristics of interaction between flow field and the inner mechanism linked to streamline map and concentration distribution map are analysed based on the concept of cavity flow. The future research content is briefly proposed.
Optimal design of sewer networks including topographic criteria and drop manholes
(Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2024-03-06) Saldarriaga, Juan; Herrán, Juana; Iglesias Rey, Pedro Luis; Dpto. de Ingeniería Hidráulica y Medio Ambiente; Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería Industrial
[EN] Optimal sewer network design is a complex problem that has been widely studied in literature. A methodology published in the literature that has shown great potential is the proposed by Duque, Duque, Aguilar, Saldarriaga. This methodology uses Mixed Integer Programming to select the layout of the network and Dynamic Programming to select the optimal combination of diameters and depths of pipes. Although the methodology showed good performance, two improvements have been implemented in later works. The first one is to consider topographic criteria when selecting the layout. This demonstrated to reduce the sewer network design’s costs. The other improvement is the addition of drop manholes in the optimization process. This allowed the methodology to comply with maximum velocity constrains in hilly regions. The present work tested the three methodologies mentioned before in a sewer network located in Bogotá, Colombia to evaluate the contributions and disadvantages of each methodology considering the cost and the hydraulic features of the resulting designs, and the computational resources required with each methodology.
Aquarellus: a numerical too to calculate accumulation of particulate matter in drinking water distribution systems
(Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València, 2024-03-06) van Summeren, Joost; Dash, Amitosh; Morley, Mark; de Waal, Luuk; van Steen, Jip
[EN] Despite preventive measures, turbid (vernacular: “discolored”) distributed drinking water is still a common cause for customer complaints across the world. Discoloration events are caused by the accumulation of particulate matter in drinking water distribution systems (DWDSs) and subsequent remobilization during hydraulic events [1], although uncertainties remain concerning the specific accumulation and transport processes. For Dutch DWDSs, it is plausible that microscopic particles originating at treatment plants contribute substantially to the particulate matter that resides in DWDSs, and that physical processes within the distribution network are cardinal in the subsequent transport during distribution. Aquarellus, a predictive numerical tool has been developed to predict the accumulation of particulate material in DWDSs. It integrates hydraulic calculations using the EPANET toolbox with a particle transport module that is based on a description of gravitational settling, particle stagnation, bed load transport, and resuspension of particles in distribution pipes, depending on the shear stress near the pipe wall [2]. The performance of the multi-core calculations allows for simulating distribution network sizes that are common to Dutch water utilities (100s of km total pipe length). The user can assign the injection of multiple particle species corresponding to temporal patterns at multiple source locations. A graphical user interface handles user IO and the visualization of geographical maps as well as time-dependent build-up of particulate material across the distribution network and within individual pipes. To characterize particle properties (critical input parameters) encountered in Dutch DWDSs, we performed lab experiments on 9 samples from 3 water utilities to determine particle size distributions, mass density, mobility thresholds, and a measure for gravitational settling. Using the outcomes of these lab experiments, a sensitivity test with a range of input parameters was performed in Aquarellus. This helped determine how the variation in the relevant input parameters influence the calculated spatial patterns of accumulated particulate matter ̶ a measure for the discoloration risk. We compared the modeling results to turbidity measurements from systematic cleaning actions in a real-life Dutch distribution network (Spijkenisse). Finally, we will discuss the potential for applying the tool to assist the planning of cleaning actions and monitoring programs.

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