Office of Research and Development Publications

Quantifying hydraulic and water quality uncertainty to inform sampling of drinking water distribution systems

Citation:

Hart, D., J. Rodriguez, J. Burkhardt, B. Borchers, C. Laird, R. Murray, K. Klise, AND T. Haxton. Quantifying hydraulic and water quality uncertainty to inform sampling of drinking water distribution systems. JOURNAL OF WATER RESOURCES PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT. American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Reston, VA, 145(1):., (2019).

Impact/Purpose:

Drinking water utilities are responsible for the delivery of safe, potable water to consumers. As the water is transported from the treatment plant through the distribution system to the customers, the quality of the water can deteriorate due to reactions within the bulk water and on pipe walls. Determining the injection location and estimating the hydraulics can assist a drinking water utility in identifying where is the best location to take samples.

Description:

Sampling of drinking water distribution systems is performed to satisfy regulatory requirements but also to respond to customer complaints or emergency situations. Water distribution system modeling techniques can be used to plan and inform sampling strategies; however, a high degree of accuracy and confidence in the models is required to support real-time response. One source of error in models is related to uncertainty in model input parameters. Effective characterization of these uncertainties and their effect on contaminant transport is critical for providing confidence estimates in model-based design and evaluation of different sampling strategies. In this paper, the effects of uncertainty in customer demand, isolation valve status, bulk reaction rate coefficients, contaminant injection locations, start time and duration on the size and location contaminant plume are quantified for an example water distribution system. Results show that the most important parameter was the injection location.