Design of Water Distribution Network for Equitable Supply

Water shortage is experienced in different parts of the world in different magnitude. In certain countries, water deficit is a regular phenomenon and in some other countries it happens for a short duration, due to failure of any component in the system. Shortage of water at source can be best tackled by distributing the available water equally among the consumers. This paper deals with the design of water distribution network capable of equitable supply during shortage in addition to the satisfactory performance under non-deficit condition. Performance of a typical water distribution network, with shortage of water at source is illustrated in detail. Head dependent outflow analysis with extended period simulation, is used to determine the actual supply from each node to consumers. Relationship between duration of supply and volume available at source as well as supply from each node are established for understanding the behaviour of network under low supply situation. A term “inequity” which is the maximum difference in supply demand ratio among different consumers is presented. This is based on the actual performance of the network instead of surrogate measures, generally used for reliability. It is illustrated that the maximum “inequity” in supply in a network during the entire duration of supply can be estimated with single analysis. Design of a water distribution network, duly considering equity in addition to the cost minimization and minimum head requirement is presented. Genetic Algorithm is used for solving this multi objective problem. The solution technique is illustrated using two benchmark problems, namely two loop network and Hanoi network. Results show that considerable improvement in equitable supply can be achieved with additional investment on pipes above the least cost solution. Hence it is better to design networks duly considering deficit condition for better reliability. It is also illustrated that it will be difficult to improve equity beyond a limit for a given network, through selection of different pipe diameters.