Analysis of the impact of intermittent distribution by modelling the network-filling process

In many countries, users acquire private tanks to reduce their vulnerability to water scarcity. In such conditions, water managers often apply intermittent distribution in order to reduce the water volumes supplied to the users. This practice modifies the hydraulic behaviour of the network and determines competition among users that need to collect enough water resource for their uses. Intermittent distribution is thus responsible for the inequality that can occur among users: those located in advantaged positions of the network are able to obtain water resources soon after the service period begins, while others have to wait much longer, after the network is full. This paper analyses the i…

Evaluation of the water scarcity energy cost

Bayesian inference analysis of the uncertainty linked to the evaluation of potential flood damage in urban areas.

Flood damage in urbanized watersheds may be assessed by combining the flood depth–damage curves and the outputs of urban flood models. The complexity of the physical processes that must be simulated and the limited amount of data available for model calibration may lead to high uncertainty in the model results and consequently in damage estimation. Moreover depth–damage functions are usually affected by significant uncertainty related to the collected data and to the simplified structure of the regression law that is used. The present paper carries out the analysis of the uncertainty connected to the flood damage estimate obtained combining the use of hydraulic models and depth–damage curve…

Uncertainty evaluation of design rainfall for urban flood risk analysis

A reliable and long dataset describing urban flood locations, volumes and depths would be an ideal prerequisite for assessing flood frequency distributions. However, data are often piecemeal and long-term hydraulic modelling is often adopted to estimate floods from historical rainfall series. Long-term modelling approaches are time- and resource-consuming, and synthetically designed rainfalls are often used to estimate flood frequencies. The present paper aimsto assess the uncertainty of such an approach and for suggesting improvements in thedefinition of synthetic rainfall data for flooding frequency analysis. According to this aim, a multivariate statistical analysis based on a copulameth…

A PERFORMANCE-BASED TOOL FOR PRIORITISING WATER METER SUBSTITUTION IN A URBAN DISTRIBUTION NETWORK

User water consumption is usually measured by volumetric water meters. Water meters also provide indispensable data used by the utilities for issuing bills, obtaining the system water balance, identifying failures in the network, water theft and anomalous user behaviour. Therefore, the utilities rely on such instruments for the technical and economic management of water systems. Despite their importance, water meters are characterised by relevant intrinsic errors that are responsible for a part of so-called apparent losses, i.e. water volumes reaching a final user without being accounted for. The aim of this paper is to provide a water meter management tool that analyses the meters performa…