Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: A Sustainable Center for Crowd-Sourced Water Infrastructure Modeling
EPA Grant Number: R835950Center: Gulf Coast HSRC (Lamar)
Center Director: Ho, Tho C.
Title: A Sustainable Center for Crowd-Sourced Water Infrastructure Modeling
Investigators: Hodges, Ben R. , Cleveland, Theodore G. , Barrett, Michael E. , Ames, Daniel P. , Leite, Fernanda , Berglund, Emily , Urbonas, Ben , Brashear, Bob , Rowney, A. Charles
Institution: Brigham Young University , The University of Texas at Austin , North Carolina State University , Texas Tech University , Urban Watersheds Research Institute
EPA Project Officer: Packard, Benjamin H
Project Period: September 1, 2016 through August 31, 2021 (Extended to August 31, 2023)
Project Amount: $3,999,803
RFA: National Center for Sustainable Water Infrastructure Modeling Research (2014) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Water , Water Quality
Objective:
The overarching objectives of this project were to establish and operate a center --- the National Center for Infrastructure Modeling and Management (NCIMM) --- that supported: (i) novel research in water infrastructure modeling, (ii) community outreach, support, and training, and (iii) code and model development for freely available water infrastructure models.
The specific project objectives in novel research for water infrastructure modeling included:
· Improving methods for pipe failure modeling and analysis in water distribution systems,
· Developing a new approach to anonymizing data from smart water meters,
· Developing new methods for identifying patterns of pressure transients in water distribution systems,
· Analysis of water conservation effects on water demand,
· Developing spatial autocorrelation analysis tools for identifying hotspots of persistent lead contamination after remediation,
· Reviewing the state-of-the-science in water distribution systems security and resilience to cyber-physical threats.
· Analysis of gentrification effects on water demand,
· Demonstrating that automated calibration is possible for SWMM,
· Creating a novel approach to partitioning a network for efficient parallel simulation,
· Developing a new finite-volume discretization method for the Saint-Venant equations,
· Developing improved methods for solving mixed free-surface and pressurized flow in pipe networks,
· Improving parallel computation methods for large water network systems.
The specific project objectives in community outreach, support, and training included:
· Building of community consensus through establishment of a Scientific Advisory Committee and community visioning workshops,
· Disseminating the latest research and developing community connections at professional conferences,
· Building a web-based Hydroshare environment for EPANET
· Building online training tools for EPANET and SWMM that allow students to run models without installing on their local computer,
· Establishing a sustainable non-profit center --- Center for Infrastructure Modeling and Management (CIMM) --- as a 501c3 charitable organization for ongoing community support of water infrastructure modeling.
The specific project objectives in code development for water infrastructure models included:
· Developing code for a new parallel hydraulic solver (SWMM5+) for storm water and sewer networks,
· Developing code for a new parallel transient analysis solver (PTSNet) for water distribution networks,
· Developing a new approach and code in a toolbox (WUDESIM) for handling dead-end branches in EPANET water quality modeling,
· Developing new plug-in tools for the prototype advanced EPANET graphical user interface,
· Creating code for a novel linear approximation (GP-NET) of water distribution systems for rapid modeling.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
Pipe failure modeling and analysis: Being able to repair water distribution pipes before they fail is a long-term goal for any water utility. However, predicting the likely failure points in any system remains more art than science. This project showed that statistical analysis techniques can be used to evaluate the past history of failure, which can be correlated to local pipe characteristics. Further work is needed to expand the fundamental science into a practical tool for utilities.
Privacy protection for smart water meters: Smart water meters are a new tool for water utilities to better understand system operation and find leaks. However, water use data from a dwelling is implicitly data on occupancy and personal behavior, and hence has security and privacy concerns. Such concerns feed into public opposition to smart meters. Developing privacy protection that shields the occupants without altering the validity of water data remains a challenging problem. In this project, the addition of a small water tank and an algorithm for filling/emptying the tank can be used to disguise personal behavior patterns implied by water use without affecting the net use measured by the meter.
Understanding pressure transient data from high-frequency pressure sensors: High-frequency pressure sensors provide new capabilities for utilities to monitor and manage water distribution systems. This research provides algorithms for analyzing the high-frequency data and clustering it into patterns. This work is a necessary preliminary step in linking high-frequency pressure data to pipe fatigue and leakage issues.
Impact of water conservation on performance of urban water systems: The straining of water resources in many locations has led to the imposition of water demand management. Reducing water demand is shown to reduce energy consumption required to pump water, which is a net savings to the utility. Furthermore, reduced demands can also reduce the need for infrastructure upgrades since peak flows may remain lower than original design conditions despite population growth. However, reduced demand can also lead to slower flow in the piping system, which increases the water age when it reaches the consumer. Increased water age has implications for increased costs in water treatment and/or increased health risks to consumers. Furthermore, reducing water demand does not reduce water losses in similar proportion, i.e., the ratio of water lost to water supplied increases, which means the cost of lost water must be spread over a smaller quantity of water sold to consumers.
Recovery from lead contamination after remediation intervention: Evaluating system-wide remediation, such as after widespread lead contamination in Flint, Michigan, requires large data sets of sampling in both space and time throughout a system. Analyzing such data and drawing inferences are challenging efforts. In this project, it was demonstrated that spatial autocorrelation analysis provides an approach that allows a large water quality data set to be analyzed for trends and identification of contamination hot spots, which can help water utilities target additional, localized remediation efforts.
Cyber-physical threats in water distribution systems: Protecting water distribution systems against both physical threats (e.g., earthquake, flood) and cyber threats (e.g., hacking, code bugs) remains challenging. Increasing system sensors and automation to improve system management can make the system more vulnerable to cyber threats unless adequate cyber defenses are developed. The area of research covers several disciplines, which are brought together in the review paper developed in this project.
Operational effects of gentrification on water networks: One of the ongoing challenges for water utilities is deciding when and where to invest in improving the water distribution infrastructure. In evaluating effects of population growth, water utilities typically consider only how the population density is changing in the service area. However, this project shows that changing socioeconomic factors -- i.e., gentrification -- in the populace can change the water demand patterns. That is, how much water per person is used and the time of day that water is used will change with gentrification. Utilities need to consider the changing demand patterns as well as the increase in population.
Automated calibration of storm water network models: Calibration of the hydrologic system is part of the �art� of storm water modeling that requires expert judgment to determine the empirical landscape parameters. There is a need for automated calibration methods to provide faster and more reliable calibration without the intervention of an engineer. This project demonstrated that fully automated calibration is possible using genetic algorithms. Unfortunately, the present coding approach is too computationally costly to be a practical management tool. Further research is needed to improve the overall efficiency of the method.
Partitioning a network for efficient parallel simulation: Parallel computing is necessary for fast modeling of large systems. Parallelization requires breaking the network up into similarly-sized pieces so that each piece is handled by a single processor. Communication of data between processors is a limit on parallel efficiency, so an algorithm was needed to minimize the number of break points in the network (i.e., where information on a pipe must be set to a neighbor processor). A new approach was developed that adds to our understanding of how a network should be broken up for parallelization. In this approach, the communication burden should be a small fraction of the overall compute burden if each processor handles a large number of computational elements.
New finite-volume methods for the Saint-Venant equations:
The key to simulation of a storm water system is solution of the Saint-Venant equations, which are the equations for conservation of mass and momentum throughout a one-dimensional network. Because these equations are nonlinear there is a tendency for models to "blow up" -- i.e., go unstable -- and/or have convergence problems (i.e., they do not provide a valid solution). In this subproject, we revisited the fundamentals of the Saint-Venant equations and showed that the preferred finite-volume form for the SWMM5+ model requires an additional term that has been neglected in prior work. This new term helps ensure model stability and solution smoothness.
New method for surcharged flow in storm water systems: One of the challenges in any storm water model is the transition between free-surface flow and full-pipe (pressurized) flow. These two conditions have very different physical behaviors and are prone to producing "shocks" in a model solution. The Center has devoted extensive study and development to making sure the transitions from free-surface to full-pipe flow are smooth and provide a good solution.
Parallel modeling of large systems: Testing parallel scaling of a network solution is challenging as effectiveness will depend on (i) the number of communication boundaries between sections of the network and (ii) the number of computational elements in each section. If a test case for parallelization has a small number of computational elements assigned to each processor then the communication burden will always dominate the overall computational time -- even if the parallelization algorithm is perfect. Thus, to evaluate parallel computing performance across a large number of processors, a sufficiently large system is needed. This research project added to our understanding of how the trade-offs between communication and computation time affect parallel scaling for water network simulation.
Building community modeling consensus and oversight: The EPANET and SWMM models have a long history of collaboration between academia, industry, and EPA in development of new model capabilities. The uses of these models are complex and vary widely, such that it is impossible for a single person to have the vision of "what is needed next." Two "visioning summits" were sponsored by the Center. These were designed to bring together a broad array of academics, engineering professionals, model vendors, and government scientists to discuss the future of these models and provide guidance to the Center on research directions. These summits helped the Center build a broader community base for the modeling efforts and informed the improved approach of using separate Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) and Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) bodies for model oversight. Whereas the TAC focused on technical details of models, the SAC provided programmatic, strategic, and business-oriented comments and recommendations to the Center over the course of the award. The final findings and recommendations of the SAC provide a better understanding of how and why a sustainable non-profit CIMM should be involved in future code development in partnership with EPA.
Building the community through conferences and workshops: In person and (to some extent) virtual meetings of professionals and academics remains the most effective approach to community development. The COVID-19 period showed that virtual meetings are feasible, but are less effective than in-person meetings. The ability for persons to rapidly communicate ideas, get verbal and non-verbal feedback, draw on whiteboards (or a napkin) are important aspects of outreach and communication that are not well handled in virtual regimes.
Creating a web-based EPANET model catalog and execution environment: An ongoing challenge for the water distribution community is the ability to easily share knowledge and models. Presently, such sharing is done peer-to-peer through personal connections. This project showed that it is possible to create a community repository for EPANET models using the existing Hydroshare server architecture. However, implementation and use of this sharing system has implication for water distribution network security that must be considered before widespread use can be expected.
Development of EPANET/SWMM training tools: Training new users to use the complex modeling tools EPANET and SWMM is an ongoing challenge. To address this, UWRI has developed entry-level training modules for SWMM and EPANET that have added to the available toolset for teaching new users to the models. These are presently in designed for in-person or virtual training, but could be converted to self-paced online learning. With prior technology, a substantial "spin-up" time was required for any training course to make sure that every student had a working copy of the model on their laptop computer. This effort can be frustrating due to the wide range of operating systems and machine idiosyncrasies that an instructor might encounter. We have developed the online EPANET and SWMM interface to provide the full model functionality using a browser-based web interface so that users do not have to install any software. The disadvantage of this approach is that the size of models that can be run depends on the available server capability.
Establishing a sustainable non-profit center: As the EPA cannot guarantee long-term funding for the Center, the project organized a US-based 501c3 charitable organization --- the Center for Infrastructure Modeling and Management (CIMM) --- as an organizational structure for providing ongoing community support of water infrastructure modeling.
SWMM5+ Parallel hydraulic network solver for storm water and sewer networks: A key problem for storm water and sewer systems is in efficient solution of large network problems (i.e., an entire city) under severe storm conditions where flows exceed the original system design capacity. SWMM5+ provides stable, mass-conservative simulations with algorithms designed for large-scale parallel computing, which can be used to reliably model such large systems. This capability contrasts with the present state-of-the-art where large EPA SWMM models under severe storm conditions typically result in significant mass conservation errors and oscillatory solutions that are untrustworthy. SWMM5+ can be relied on to produce a good result with a single computational run, whereas standard EPA SWMM model may require multiple runs and intervention of an expert modeler to obtain a trustworthy model.
PTSNet parallel solver for transient analysis in water distribution systems: High-pressure transients are an important contributor to failures in water distribution systems. Such transients may arise with rapid valve closing or pump shut off. Routine oscillating transients can cause pipe fatigue and lead to increased water leakage. Detection and mitigation of transients remains a technical challenge. Prior to PTSNet, engineers had a choice of either analyzing a large system with steady-state models (e.g. EPANET) that cannot represent transients, or analyzing only a small section of a system for transients. PTSNet is the first tool that can be efficiently used for large system transient analysis. Note that the Center's Research Director (Hodges) has received an NSF grant (2049025) to further study destructive transients in stormwater systems.
WUDESIM Improving EPANET water quality modeling: Dead-end branches (no water demand) in a water distribution system pose a challenge for water quality modeling. The standard algorithms used in EPANET do not accurately represent the evolution of water quality in a dead-end branch where the flow may be zero or very small. In particular, water in a dead-end branch will be stagnant near the pipe wall, with the longer contact time for this water providing increasing reaction with wall biofilms that affect water quality. WUDESIM introduces a solution of a more realistic governing equation that ensures stagnation and wall effects can be correctly simulated. A second goal of WUDESIM is to improve how "skeletonization" affects water quality solutions in EPANET. For large water distribution systems, modelers often reduce the system size by creating a "skeleton" system that aggregates demand in smaller branches. This skeletonized system provides a reasonable representation of flowrates, but misrepresents the evolution of water quality, particularly where dead-end branches exist. WUDESIM provides a new set of algorithms for approximating the effects of aggregating demand in a skeletonized system.
Developing interface plugin tools for the advanced EPANET graphical user interface: The EPANET model is difficult to learn and the present GUI is limited in its capabilities to add new functionality. EPA developed the prototype code for a new GUI, for which the Center worked on developing new plugin features. Unfortunately, the underlying code for the advanced EPANET GUI was too buggy for continued development and the project was abandoned or placed on hiatus by EPA-ORD.
GP-NET Linear approximation of water distribution network flows: Obtaining rapid approximation of the state of a water distribution system is a necessary part of solving control problems. Solving the full nonlinear equations is computationally costly and has generally proved difficult to efficiently use for system control. The new GP-NET approach provides a faster solution since it uses a linear network to approximate the nonlinear network.
Journal Articles: 24 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other center views: | All 90 publications | 30 publications in selected types | All 24 journal articles |
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Abokifa AA, Maheshwari A, Gudi RD, Biswas P. Influence of dead-end sections of drinking water distribution networks on optimization of booster chlorination systems. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management 2019;145(12):04019053. |
R835950 (2019) R835950 (2020) |
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Abokifa A A, Xing L, Sela L. Investigating the impacts of water conservation on water quality in distribution networks using an advection-dispersion transport model. Water 2020;12(4):1033 |
R835950 (2020) R835950 (Final) |
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Abokifa A, Sela L. Integrating spatial clustering with predictive modeling of pipe failures in water distribution systems. URBAN WATER JOURNAL 2023;20(4):465-476 |
R835950 (2021) |
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Berglund EZ, Pesantez JE, Rasekh A, Shafiee, ME, Sela L, Haxton T. Review of modeling methodologies for managing water distribution security. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management 2020;146(8):03120001 |
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Hodges B. Conservative finite-volume forms of the Saint-Venant equations for hydrology and urban drainage. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 2019;23(3):1281-1304. |
R835950 (2021) R835950 (Final) |
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Hodges BR, An artificial compressibility method for 1D simulation of open-channel and pressurized-pipe flow. Wate2020;12:6:1727. |
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Morales-Hernandez M, Sharif MB, Gangrade S, Dullo TT, Kao S, Kalyanapu A, Ghafoor SK, Evans KJ, Madadi-Kanjani E, Hodges BR. High performance computing in water resources hydrodynamics. Journal of Hydroinformatic 2020;22(5):1217–1235 |
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Riaño-Briceño G, Sela L, Hodges B. Distributed and vectorized method of characteristics for fast transient simulations in water distribution systems. Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering 2021;37(2):163-184 |
R835950 (2022) R835950 (Final) |
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Salomons E, Sela L, Housh M. Hedging for privacy in smart water meters. Water Resources Research 2020;56(9):e2020WR027917 |
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Tiernan ED, Hodges BR. A topological approach to partitioning flow networks for parallel simulation. Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering 2022;36(4):04022010. |
R835950 (2021) R835950 (Final) |
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Wang S, Taha A, Sela L, Giacomoni M, Gatsis N. A new derivative-free linear approximation for solving the network water flow problem with convergence guarantees. WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH 2020;56(3). |
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Xing L, Sela L. Unsteady pressure patterns discovery from high-frequency sensing in water distribution systems. Water Research 2019;158:291-300. |
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Yu C, Hodges BR, Liu F. A new form of the Saint-Venant equations for variable topography. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 24:4001-4024, August 2020. |
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Zhuang J, Sela L. Impact of emerging water savings scenarios on performance of urban water networks. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management 2019;146(1):04019063. |
R835950 (2019) R835950 (2020) R835950 (Final) |
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Abokifa AA, Sela L. Identification of spatial patterns in water distribution pipe failure data using spatial autocorrelation analysis. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management 2019;145(12):04019057. |
R835950 (2019) R835950 (2020) R835950 (Final) |
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Abokifa AA, Katz L, Sela L. Spatiotemporal trends of recovery from lead contamination in Flint, MI as revealed by crowdsourced water sampling. Water Research 2019:115442. |
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Abokifa A, Biswas P, Hodges BR, Sela L. WUDESIM:a toolkit for simulating water quality in the dead-end branches of drinking water distribution networks. Urban Water Journal 2020;17(1):54-64. |
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Hodges BR, Liu F. Timescale interpolation and no-neighbour discretization for a 1D finite-volume Saint-Venant solver. Journal of Hydraulic Research 2019:1-7. |
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Bayer T, Ames DP, Cleveland TG. Design and development of a web-based EPANET model catalogue and execution environment. Annals of GIS 2021;27(3):247-260. |
R835950 (Final) |
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Riaño-Briceño G, Hodges BR, Sela L. PTSNet:A Parallel Transient Simulator for Water Transport Networks based on vectorization and distributed computing. Environmental Modelling & Software 2022;158:105554. |
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Sharior S, Hodges BR, Vasconcelos JG. Generalized, dynamic, and transient-storage form of the Preissmann Slot. Journal of Hydraulic Engineering 2023;149(11):04023046. |
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Faure JC, Faust KM. Socioeconomic characteristics versus density changes:the operational effects of population dynamics on water systems. Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure 2023;8(1):3-16. |
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Yu CW, Hodges BR, Liu F. Automated detection of instability-inducing channel geometry transitions in Saint-Venant simulation of large-scale river networks. Water 2021:2236. |
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Wang S, Taha AF, Sela L, Gatsis N, Giacomoni MH. State Estimation in Water Distribution Networks through a New Successive Linear Approximation. In2019 IEEE 58th Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) 2019 Dec 11 (pp. 5474-5479). IEEE. |
R835950 (2020) |
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Supplemental Keywords:
watersheds, global climate, ecosystem, innovative technology, sustainable development, hydrology, engineering, infrastructure, data integrationRelevant Websites:
FreeSWMM training software Exit
Tethys EPANET model repository Github Exit
Tethys EPANET model viewer Github Exit
Algorithm for SvePy solver Exit
Background and details of the generalized, dynamic, transient-storage form of the Preissmann Slot Exit
Replication data for the generalized, dynamic transient-storage form of the Preissmann Slot Exit
Large scale networks data repository Exit
Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.
Project Research Results
- 2022 Progress Report
- 2021 Progress Report
- 2020 Progress Report
- 2019 Progress Report
- 2018 Progress Report
- 2017 Progress Report
- Original Abstract
24 journal articles for this center