Title: Testing contamination source identification methods for water distribution networks

Abstract

In the event of contamination in a water distribution network (WDN), source identification (SI) methods that analyze sensor data can be used to identify the source location(s). Knowledge of the source location and characteristics are important to inform contamination control and cleanup operations. Various SI strategies that have been developed by researchers differ in their underlying assumptions and solution techniques. The following manuscript presents a systematic procedure for testing and evaluating SI methods. The performance of these SI methods is affected by various factors including the size of WDN model, measurement error, modeling error, time and number of contaminant injections, and time and number of measurements. This paper includes test cases that vary these factors and evaluates three SI methods on the basis of accuracy and specificity. The tests are used to review and compare these different SI methods, highlighting their strengths in handling various identification scenarios. These SI methods and a testing framework that includes the test cases and analysis tools presented in this paper have been integrated into EPA’s Water Security Toolkit (WST), a suite of software tools to help researchers and others in the water industry evaluate and plan various response strategies in case of a contaminationmore » incident. Lastly, a set of recommendations are made for users to consider when working with different categories of SI methods.« less

Authors:

Seth, Arpan ^[1]; Klise, Katherine A. ^[2]; Siirola, John D. ^[2]; Haxton, Terranna ^[3]; Laird, Carl D. ^[1]

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+ Show Author Affiliations

1. Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States)
2. Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
3. National Homeland Security Research Center, Cincinnati, OH (United States)

Publication Date:

Fri Apr 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016

Research Org.:

Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:

USEPA; USDOE

OSTI Identifier:

1341749

Report Number(s):

SAND2017-0714J
Journal ID: ISSN 0733-9496; 650649

Grant/Contract Number:  

AC04-94AL85000

Resource Type:

Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:

Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Volume: 142; Journal Issue: 4; Journal ID: ISSN 0733-9496

Publisher:

American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)

Country of Publication:

United States

Language:

English

Subject:

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; 97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING