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Definition of performance indicators for urban water distribution systems in

drought conditions

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Chiara M Fontanazza Gabriele Freni

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Definition of performance indicators
for urban water distribution systems
in drought conditions
C. M. Fontanazza1, G. Freni 1,G. La Loggia 1 and
V. Notaro1

1
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Idraulica ed Applicazioni Ambientali, Università
degli Studi di Palermo. notaro@idra.unipa.it, Viale delle Scienze 90128
Palermo (Italy), Tlf +39 0916657720, Fax: +39 0916657749

Keywords: Drought condition, Equitable water supply, Intermittent water

service, Urban water distribution systems

ABSTRACT
The present study proposes a procedure for analysing urban water distribution
system characterised by intermittent supply service under drought conditions.
Namely, ten new performance indicators have been defined able to identify
© 2008 COST Office. Performance Assessment of Urban Infrastructure Services. Edited by Enrique
Cabrera Jr. & Miguel Angel Pardo. ISBN: 1 84339 191 0. Published by IWA Publishing, London,
UK.

35
 Performance Assessment of Urban Infrastructure Services

inequality in water supply both considering effects on users, whose consumption

reduces, and effects on network, whose hydraulic behaviour during the service
cycle greatly varies. The procedure has been applied to analyse the performance
of an existing supply system in Palermo (Italy). The network and users’
behaviour in intermittent distribution conditions have been monitored and a
mathematical model has been arranged and calibrated in order to evaluate the
impact of water scarcity events on population and consequently suggest actions
for improving resources distribution equity.

1 INTRODUCTION
Water shortage is, nowadays, one of the main problems for social and economic
growth in the world. Many programmatic reports (among others
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007) recently foresee a drastic
reduction of the water resources available for human purposes due to climate
change. Although all these studies show some uncertainty in quantifying the
severity of this reduction and declares that the unbalance between the water
demand growing and the resources available decrease is a real problem that
should not be neglected. Like any unbalance between water resources demand
and offer, water shortage can be linked both to natural and climatic phenomena
both to atrophic activities (such as incorrect management of supply networks,
inefficient use of water resources, etc…). Thus, severity and duration of water
shortage negative effects for people and economic activities depend on the
climatic drought characteristics and on the atrophic systems adaptability to the
new environmental conditions.
In such context, distribution networks are usually the weak point of the
whole water supply system. During water shortage period, networks operating
conditions are very far from the usual design ones: discontinuous water
distribution and water resources rationing are often used as the main measure to
cope with water scarcity. This approach is widely adopted not only in
developing countries (McIntosh et al., 1997; Hardoy et al., 2001;
Vairavamoorthy et al., 2001) but also in developed ones for solving short-term
scarcity conditions, which can be caused by unexpected or unpredicted drought
periods (Cubillo Gonzales & Ibanez Carranza, 2003). When a continuous
system is managed as an intermittent one, pressure distribution is often
inadequate to provide a sufficient service level and water supply results to be
inequitable and not homogenous in space and time (Fontanazza et al., 2007).
Moreover, intermittent water service has a relevant impact on population
causing modification on usual social and economic activities of users, above all
36
Definition of performance indicators for urban water distribution systems in drought conditions

on those located far from the supplying nodes or at higher elevation in the
network. The main cause of such behaviour can be researched in the traditional
methodologies adopted to design supply network that fail when supplied flows
are lower than design user demand. Usually network is aimed to satisfy users
demand (residential, commercial, industrial) on the base of an optimistic
prevision of the available water volumes. In such complex situation, network
behaviour and user accessibility to water resources are determined by pressure
levels and advanced tools are needed for analysing and representing system
ability to meet users needs. The analysis of such operational conditions has to be
tacked by the mean of head-driven mathematical models. Such models are
widely discussed in literature (Reddy & Elango, 1989; Chandapillai, 1991;
Jowitt & Xu, 1993; Gupta & Bhave, 1996) even if some questions are still open
especially on the definition of relationships between supplied water volumes and
network pressure.
System behaviour can be synthetically assessed by Performance Indicators
(PIs) that are defined in literature for characterizing the system in continuous
supply conditions, and, for this reason, they may not be suitable to represent the
status of the network or to evaluate drought mitigation measures effectiveness.
Therefore, the aim of the present study is the definition of new PIs focused to
analyse supply systems under water scarcity and intermittent operational
conditions. This new set of PIs can help to identify the network sectors where
the detrimental effects of intermittent distribution are more relevant and to guide
the proposition of operational approaches that can reduce the impact on users.

2 PERFORMANCE INDICATORS FOR URBAN WATER

SUPPLY SYSTEMS IN SHORTAGE CONDITIONS
In the last years, many definitions have been proposed to explain the concept of
performance of water supply system and many methodologies have been
implemented to quantify performance in the most objective and general way (La
Loggia & Mazzola, 1989; Alegre et al., 2006). This aim is usually pursued by
the definition of Performance Indicators (PIs) synthetically representing system
behaviour.
Generally, urban water systems PIs are grouped in homogeneous categories
according to the different relevant aspects for water distribution management
(Alegre et al., 2006): Water Resources (WR), Personnel (Pe), Physical (Ph),
Operational (Op), Quality of Service (QS), Economic and Financial (Fi).
Comparing intermittent and continuous water supply systems, Pe, Fi and Ph
indicators do not require substantial changes, even if some of them may assume
37
 Performance Assessment of Urban Infrastructure Services

“unusual” values. The other categories need the definition of new PIs describing
the risk that water supply may not be equitable and some groups of users may
not be able to have sufficient access to water resources.
According to this aim, ten new performance indicators have been proposed in
the present study. Namely, the adoption of the proposed PIs is focused to
identify the peculiarly situations of the intermittent operating mode and to take
into account these ones during the global system performance assessing.
With regard to WR category, two performance indices have been proposed
(table 1): WV1 is defined as the ratio between the average daily water volumes
supplied at each node and those should be distributed to users in a service cycle
according to water resources availability; WV2, instead, is defined as the ratio
between hourly water supply in intermittent and continuous conditions.

Table 1. WATER RESOURCES AVAILABILITY PIs (WR)

Water volume supplied to users in a service cycle (the time lag
Vsup Vint between two subsequent activations of water services in
WV1 = intermittent distribution conditions)
Vd Water volumes that should be distributed, in a service cycle, to
Vd
users during shortage conditions according to water availability

Qint, i Qint, i Average water flow supplied to users at hour i in intermittent

distribution conditions
WV2 =
Qcont ,i Qcont ,i Average water flow supplied to users at hour i in continuous
distribution conditions

With regard to the Op category, seven indices have been proposed (table 2).
The first two indices SD1 and SD2 are related to the intermittent distribution
service duration. Namely, SD2 highlights the major problems caused by an
intermittent service adopted during the day instead of during the night.
The last five indices, instead, are linked to the system resilience:
• SR1 shows the distribution network resilience. High values of this
index, due to great storage volumes in the system tanks (public and
private), point out a good adaptability of the network to an unexpected
supplying interruption caused by a short-term scarcity condition, while
low values show high system vulnerability.
• SR2 points out the supply system resilience. Low values of this index,
due to high storage volumes in the reservoir, identify a good system
adaptability to a reduction of the extractable water from its supply
sources caused by a long-term scarcity condition.
• SR3 represents the frequency of the supply service interruptions.
• SR4 represents the total duration of service interruptions in a year.

38
Definition of performance indicators for urban water distribution systems in drought conditions

• SR5 evaluates the gap between the average residential water demand in
the analysed area and in the country.

Table 2. OPERATIONAL PIs (OP)

ST
SD1 = ST Duration of the water supply service [hour]
24
ST8− 20 Hours of water supply service in the period
SD2 = ST8− 20 of the day in which population is active
ST (from 8:00 to 20:00)
Volume of reservoirs available in the
Vs Vs network (both considering public and private
SR1 = tanks) [cubic meters per capita]
Vd Average user demand [cubic meters per
Vd
capita per day]
Qmg Daily average water flow request by the
Qmg urban centre
SR2 = N
Water flow derivable by the ith water source
∑ Qavail ,i Qavail ,i (considering all available water resources in
i =1
the area)
N inter Number of supply service interruptions in
SR3 = N inter
365 one year
Turn Total duration of service interruptions in a
SR4 = Turn
365 year

Durb _ centre Average residential water demand in the

Durb _ centre analysed area
SR5 =
Dregion Average residential water demand in the
D region
region

The reliability of the proposed PIs to analyse network behaviour in water

shortage conditions, can be quickly verified carrying out a performance analysis
of an existing supply system. According to this aim can be applied the
performance analysis procedure firstly proposed by Coelho (1997) where
system variables is compared with threshold values of user-defined curves
(penalty curves) allowing for calculating PIs performance score and assess
system performance. For each PI, a suitable penalty curve is defined in order to
evaluate the performance associated to every network element. The system
performance is assimilated to the level of service, varying between a “void
service” and an “optimum service” condition, and the curve is built in penalising
the behaviour far from “optimum service” conditions. Figure 1 shows penalty
curves related to indices WV1 and WV2.

39
 Performance Assessment of Urban Infrastructure Services

4 4

PERFORMANCE
3
PERFORMANCE

2 2

1 1

0 0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0
PI: WV1 PI: WV2

Figure 1. EXAMPLES OF SOME PENALTY CURVES ADOPTED IN THE STUDY

3 PI APPLICATION AND RESULTS DISCUSSION

3.1 The case study

The performance analysis has been carried out using as case study one of the 17
distribution networks of Palermo (Fontanazza et al., 2007).
Figure 2 shows the distribution network adopted in the present study.
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A

P IA Z A
GU
ADG
ANA

Figure 2 . CASE STUDY NETWORK SCHEME (Fontanazza et al.,. 2007).

Users elevation range is between 47 m and 3 m above the sea level. The
distribution system is fed by two tanks at different levels that can store up about
40.000 m3 per day, and supply around 35.000 inhabitants. The network is long
about 40 km and pipes are made of polyethylene with diameters ranging from
110 to 225 mm. The design user water demand is about 400 L/capita/d but the
actual mean consumption is about 280 l/capita/d. As consequence, in ordinary
conditions, the network is characterised by low water velocities and
40
Definition of performance indicators for urban water distribution systems in drought conditions

correspondently high pressures causing in the past high leakages. This condition
together with the recurrent lack of water resources has not permitted to maintain
continuous distribution in the last 5 years (at least in summer period) and
intermittent distribution on daily basis has been introduced as a common
practice convincing the users to build up local private reservoirs.

3.2 The intermittent distribution network model

The network has been analysed by the mean of an intermittent water distribution
mathematical model schematising both user and manager dependent regulation
structures (pumps, private reservoirs, etc.), typical of the systems where water
distribution is periodically provided on intermittent basis (Fontanazza et al.,
2007). Namely, a private reservoir under the roof and a pump have been
associated with each supply node (figure 3).
WATER LEVEL SENSOR

PRIVATE RESERVOIR

PRESSURE SENSOR

PUMP
NETWORK
NODE CHECK CONTROL VALVE

Figure 3. DISTRIBUTION NODE NUMERICAL SCHEME

The reservoir has been designed according to nodal daily water demand and a
pump has been chosen being able to fill the reservoir in 4 or 5 hours. The pump
is turned on if the reservoir is empty and turned off if the reservoir is full or the
pressure on the network is negative. To take into account that pumps permit to
provide private reservoirs even if nodal pressure is lower than minimum
required to have outflow at the node, the user demand has been simulated
introducing a pressure-consumption relationship in the range of node head lower
than the minimum value. Specifically, the actual outflow at node j q avl
j has
been defined by the following equation:
p
q avl
j =k⋅Hj (1)
where Hj is the nodal head and k and p are calibration coefficients.
41
 Performance Assessment of Urban Infrastructure Services

This algorithm has been readily implemented into an existing hydraulic

network solver, EPANET 2 (Rossman, 2000).
The model has been calibrated by the mean of a wide set given by six months
of continuous water flow data at the two network inflow nodes and
correspondent pressure and flow data in 6 nodes distributed inside the network.
The data has been collected on hourly basis. The only parameter that has been
considered in the calibration process was the pipe roughness and the calibration
has been performed by the least square method fitting the simulated pressures
and flows in the network internal nodes with the measurements.

3.3 The network performance analysis

Three possible operative scenarios have been simulated with water resources
availability respectively equal to the 95%, 85% and 75% of users demand.
System performance analysis has been carried out using all new proposed
PIs. Namely, for each simulated scenario and network node index WV1 has been
computed in the whole simulation period, while index WV2 has been computed
for each analysis time step. The related nodal performance scores have been
assigned using the penalty curves shown in figure 1. For each operational (OP)
index, instead, has been computed a single global system value (table 3).

Table 3. OPERATIONAL PIS (OP) VALUES

PIs (OP)
NETWORK PARAMETERS
SD1 1.00
3
ST [h] 24 Qavail,1 [m /h] 43.2 SD2 0.50
3
ST8-20 12 Qavail,2 [m /h] 435.6 SR1 5.96
Vs_private [m3] 17500 Qavail,3 [m3/h] 399.5 SR2 0.46
Vs_public [m3] 40000 Dregion [m3/h] 0.2 SR3 0.25
3
Vs=Vs_private+Vs_public [m ] 57500 Durban centre [mc*ab/d] 0.3 SR4 0.49
3
Qmg [m /h] 401.9 Turn days 180 SR5 1.33

With regard to WV1 index the analysis of figures 4a, 4b and 4c shows
inequity in water volumes distributed to users. Namely, in the first scenario (fig.
4a), corresponding to a mild shortage conditions, low performances are present
in the lower part of the network, due to the fact that users collect more water
than the needed, while, in the higher part of the network, users demand is not
satisfied due to the low pressures. Analysing the other two scenarios (figg. 4b
and 4c), corresponding to water volumes availabilities equal to 85% and 75% of

42
Definition of performance indicators for urban water distribution systems in drought conditions

demand, average network performance reduces slightly while inequalities

among users are more evident with a large part of the network affected by water
supply deficiencies and few users almost unaffected by water scarcity effects.
With regard to the first scenario the analysis of index WV2 has demonstrated
that, in the first part of the service day (just after the restart of the water service),
all nodal performances are zero: the lower zone of the network drains the most
part of the available resources for filling their local reservoirs showing values of
WV2 near to 320%; instead, due to low pressure, the high part of the network
cannot drain resource showing WV2 near to 0%. During the service period,
lower nodes are filling and resource becomes progressively available for higher
nodes (fig. 5a). At the end of service cycle, when lower reservoirs are filled (fig.
5b), WV2 values in the higher part of the network grow while local reservoirs
are filling.

4a 4b

4c

Figure 4. PERFORMANCE RELATED TO WV1 INDEX: a) 95%, b) 85% AND c) 75%

SCENARIOS

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 Performance Assessment of Urban Infrastructure Services

5a 5b
Figure 5. PERFORMANCE RELATED TO WV2 INDEX: a) 3 PM, b) 3 AM

In intermittent distribution under water scarcity conditions, WV2 indices are

highly variable demonstrating that the network subjected to intermittent
distribution will work in conditions that are quite far from the design ones and
also from the operating conditions that take part in continuous distribution.

4 CONCLUSIONS
The present study has proposed a procedure for analysing a distribution network
under intermittent distribution condition. The methodology has defined ten
performance indicators able to identify inequality in water supply both
considering long and short term effects.
The network and users’ behaviour in intermittent distribution conditions have
been monitored and a mathematical model has been arranged and calibrated.
The analysis has been allowed for evaluating network performance in
different water scarcity scenarios and for highlighting inequitable water
distribution. Intermittent supply can greatly affect both water availability for the
users and the network behaviour. In the case study, even in presence of a low
reduction of available water resources to fulfil user demand (95% scenario),
intermittent distribution produces inequalities by reducing water supply to high
elevated nodes and increasing supply to lower nodes.
The intermittent distribution has thus a great impact on users and networks.
Users change their water supply patterns with higher peaks (connected with the
filling of local reservoirs) and large periods with very low discharges. They can
also receive higher or lower water volumes depending on their elevation and
position in the network. Intermittent service changes radically the behaviour of
44
Definition of performance indicators for urban water distribution systems in drought conditions

the network with parts of it interested by flows that are much higher than the
design ones and parts interested by almost null discharges.

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 Performance Assessment of Urban Infrastructure Services

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