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1 © IWA Publishing 2016 Water Science & Technology: Water Supply | in press | 2016

Framework for water quality monitoring system in water

distribution networks based on vulnerability and
population sensitivity risks
Amin Abo-Monasar and Muhammad Al-Zahrani

ABSTRACT
Amin Abo-Monasar
Delivering water in sufficient quantity and acceptable quality is the main objective of water
Department of Civil Engineering,
distribution networks (WDN) and at the same time is the main challenge. Many factors do affect the University of Hafr Al-Batin,
P.O. Box 479,
delivery of water through distribution networks. Some of these factors are relevant to water quality, Hafr Al-Batin 31991,
Saudi Arabia
quantity and the condition of the infrastructure itself. The deterioration of water quality in the WDN
Muhammad Al-Zahrani (corresponding author)
leads to failure at the water quality level, which can be critical because it is closest to the point of Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, Water Research Group,
delivery and there are virtually no safety barriers before consumption. Accordingly, developing a
King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals,
powerful monitoring system that takes into consideration water demand distribution, the P.O. Box 686,
Dhahran 31261,
vulnerability of the distribution system and sensitivity of population to the deterioration of water Saudi Arabia
E-mail: mzahrani@kfupm.edu.sa
quality can be very beneficial and, more importantly, could save lives if there was any deterioration of
water quality due to operational failure or cross-contamination events. In this paper, a framework for
water quality monitoring system that considers water demand distribution, the vulnerability of the
system and sensitivity of population using fuzzy synthetic evaluation and optimization algorithms is
developed. The proposed approach has been applied to develop a monitoring system for a real WDN
in Saudi Arabia.
Key words | fuzzy rule-based modelling, monitoring stations, optimization, water distribution
network, water quality

INTRODUCTION

Water transported by distribution network usually passes
through a complex treatment process before its distribution.
Once the treated water is pumped into the network, there
are usually no defensive lines that could protect consumers
from any deterioration of water quality due to any
unexpected consequence that happened during the transpor-
tation. These consequences might be gradual such as the
variation of chlorine levels or rapid such as contamination
caused by intentional criminal or terrorist attacks. Many fac-
tors could affect water quality within the water distribution
networks (WDN) directly or indirectly. Some of these fac-
tors are relevant to the infrastructure of the system, such
as pipe materials, age and breaks. Some are related to the
operational practices of the network such as water age in
doi: 10.2166/ws.2016.174
the network. To prevent, control and/or reduce any poten-
tial deterioration of water quality and to ensure that the
WDN is functioning the way it should be, constant and com-
prehensive assessment and monitoring of the WDN should
be established.
In 1990 and 1992, Lee and Deininger were the first to
develop a scientific criterion to determine representative
water quality monitoring locations by developing a coverage
method concept. Since then, several improvements have
been made to the original approach developed by Lee & Dei-
ninger () in order to reduce the complexity by considering
steady and extended period simulations for water demand,
adding key parameters, including water age and pipe diam-
eters, and considering the rapid water quality deterioration
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2 A. Abo-Monasar & M. Al-Zahrani | Locating water monitoring stations based on vulnerability
rather than considering only the gradual change in water
quality. Although most of the studies that dealt with identify-
ing the optimal locations of monitoring stations (MSs) in
WDN have used water demand as the key parameter for
locating the MSs (Lee & Deininger ; Kumar et al. ;
Kessler et al. ; Liu et al. , ), other approaches
used other parameters such as water age rather than consid-
ering the demand (Tryby & Uber ). In addition, there
were several objectives used to determine the optimal
locations of MSs, such as minimizing the percentage of popu-
lation at risk due to sudden contamination attack, minimizing
the exposed population, minimizing the detection time of the
contaminant, minimizing the contaminated water consumed,
minimizing the number of times the system fails to detect a
contaminant and minimizing the length extent that the con-
taminant would reach in the pipelines (Berry et al. ,
). In general, integer programming was applied to
locate the MSs (Lee & Deininger ; Kumar et al. ;
Berry et al. ; Liu et al. ); however, other optimization
algorithms were also used, such as genetic algorithm, robust
optimization and Bayesian belief network (Al-Zahrani &
Moied ; Grayman et al. ; Watson et al. ).
In most of the studies that dealt with identifying the opti-
mal locations of MSs in WDN, water demand was the only
or the key parameter. Moreover, factors such as the vulner-
ability of the system were not considered, despite its
importance and relation to the contamination events. Fur-
thermore, it was assumed that the population will be
exposed equally to any deterioration consequences in the
WDN. However, the sensitivity of the population to con-
tamination events varies based on several factors such as
age, standard of living and population density. In this
study, an approach for determining the optimal locations
of a monitoring system was developed considering water
demand, the vulnerability of the system and population sen-
sitivity to water quality deterioration.
METHODOLOGY
Developing a comprehensive and representative water monitor-
ing system consists of two main steps. The first step prioritizes
the risk for the different regions in the city based on the
system vulnerability and population sensitivity to any
Water Science & Technology: Water Supply | in press | 2016
deterioration of water quality. The second step is determining
the optimal locations of MSs that maximizes the covered
demand (monitored demand) and takes into consideration the
regional vulnerability and sensitivity risks. Detailed descriptions
of the two phases are explained in the following paragraphs.
Step I: Risk prioritization
Risk prioritization requires an aggregation of measurable and
non-measurable factors to estimate vulnerability, sensitivity
and overall risk at specific points in the WDN using routinely
collected data. Figure 1 provides the prioritization framework
for determining vulnerability, sensitivity and overall risk indi-
ces. The framework consists of four levels or generations of
factors aggregated in a hierarchical fashion to develop differ-
ent risk indices. The top of the pyramid represents the
overall risk that depends on two factors, i.e. vulnerability and
sensitivity in the first level. These two factors are determined
through aggregation of various factors in the previous levels.
The vulnerability index is determined by aggregating factors
related to hydraulics, structural integrity and quality of the
water pumped through the WDN. The population sensitivity
index is linked to the presence of certain groups of consumers
served by the WDN, who may suffer from various conse-
quences if the water quality in the WDN deteriorates. These
indices were developed for different regions in the WDN
based on the local data for each region (Francisque et al. ).
Due to the complexity of the system, a variation of the
collected data (measurable and non-measurable) and diffi-
culty in obtaining precise data for some of the factors, an
index-based approach using fuzzy synthetic evaluation
(FSE) was used to describe vulnerability, sensitivity and
overall risk. An estimate of risk at a given location in the
WDN will provide a representative value for a predefined
geographical region. A region represents an influence zone
in which the values of all contributing factors are assumed
to be fixed. Once the risk values are determined in various
sectors of the WDN, they can be ordered, ranked or priori-
tized based on the overall risk index.
Fuzzy rule-based modelling
The fuzzy set theory was first developed by Zadeh () to
methodically incorporate human reasoning in decision
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3 A. Abo-Monasar & M. Al-Zahrani | Locating water monitoring stations based on vulnerability
Figure 1 | Framework for the risk index prioritization of water mains.
making. In FSE, variables are used as inputs for decision
making in which numeric or non-numeric data can be eval-
uated using natural linguistics such as ‘low’, ‘med’ and ‘high’
(Ross ). In this study, FSE is used to quantify and esti-
mate indices for hydraulics of the system, structure
integrity, water quality, vulnerability, sensitivity and, conse-
quently, risk index. The FSE follows the following steps
(Sadiq & Rodriguez ; Sadiq et al. ; Khan & Sadiq
; Francisque et al. ).
Fuzzification
Fuzzification can be defined as a process by which measur-
able and non-measurable input data are transformed into a
homogeneous scale (0 to 1), or the process of changing
crisp values into fuzzy values (Francisque et al. ; Ross
). When using different types of input data, which
could be a mix of measurable (i.e. pH, TDS, … etc) and
non-measurable (i.e. standard of living, activity, … etc) par-
ameters, fuzzy logic is preferred over crisp logic, since
crisp logic is limited to two classes only; True or False, 0
or 1, High or Low…etc. However, input data can be
Water Science & Technology: Water Supply | in press | 2016
classified using wide range of classes (for example: High,
Med and Low) when using fuzzy logic. Therefore, for crisp
logic a single input data can be a member of only one
class while it can belong to more than one class in fuzzy
logic. This advantage gives more freedom in classifying
different parameters and considering fuzziness or uncertai-
nity involved. Accordingly, due to the nature of input
parameters used in this study, fuzzy logic was used.
Triangular, Gaussian and trapezoidal fuzzy subsets are
usually used to fuzzify input data (Wang ; Lee ;
Sadiq et al. , ; Francisque et al. ) as shown in
Figure 2. Using these fuzzy subsets, input data can be
mapped to fuzzy sets. In this study, triangular and trapezoi-
dal membership functions were used. For example, suppose
Figure 3 shows a fuzzy set for TDS level in water. There are
three fuzzy subsets, low (μlow), med (μmed) and high (μhigh). If
TDS in water is 200 ppm, then it is said that TDS level has a
membership of 1 to ‘low’ fuzzy subset, and if the level is
800 ppm, then it is said that TDS level has a membership
of 1 to ‘high’ fuzzy subset. If TDS level is 450 ppm, then it
is said that TDS level has a membership of 0.25 to ‘low’
fuzzy subset and 0.75 to ‘med’ fuzzy subset.
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4 A. Abo-Monasar & M. Al-Zahrani | Locating water monitoring stations based on vulnerability
Figure 2 | Membership functions: (a) Triangular and (b) Trapezoidal.
Figure 3 | TDS Membership function.
To fuzzify the attributes used in this study, four types of
membership functions were used as shown in Figure 4,
three of which are triangular and one trapezoidal. The
thresholds (A, B, C, D, E and F) for these membership func-
tions (as shown in Table 1) were developed from water
quality standards published in literature and local operational
standards (AWWA ; Sarbatly & Krishnaiah ; Gupta
; WHO ;Francisque et al. ; USEPA ).
Aggregation
Aggregation is the process by which fuzzy sets representing
the outputs for each parameter or element (child element)
Water Science & Technology: Water Supply | in press | 2016
[μlow, μmed, μhigh] are combined or aggregated to produce a
single output for the group of elements (parent fuzzy set
output) (Mathworks ). Fuzzy sets produced from fuzzifi-
cation for all elements and weights calculated for each
element were used to determine the aggregated fuzzy set
for parent group using matrix multiplication (Sadiq & Rodri-
guez ; Francisque et al. ).
Defuzzification
The process by which fuzzy sets [μlow, μmed, μhigh] are con-
verted to a representative crisp value is called
defuzzification (Wang ; Francisque et al. ). There
are several methods to defuzzify fuzzy sets; however,
weighted average method or scoring is preferred by many
researchers, especially in environmental applications (Sil-
vert ; Sadiq & Rodriguez ; Francisque et al.
). According to the weighted average method, to con-
vert the fuzzy sets into a crisp value, each fuzzy set will be
multiplied by a constant weight (a, b and c) and the product
summation is the crisp value as follows:
Crisp value (Risk Index) ¼ (a × μlow ) þ (b × μmed )
þ (c × μhigh ) (1)
Step II: Locating MSs
In this phase, water demand as well as risk indices produced
in step I were used to determine the optimal locations of
MSs using the demand coverage method (DCM). Basically,
DCM assumes that if a certain percentage of water at node
X is originally coming from node Y, then it is said that set-
ting a MS at X will cover demands at Y if this portion of
the water is equal or greater than the coverage threshold
(CT). In this study, CT was defined as 60%. In other
words, if 60% or more of the water in node X is originating
from node Y, then placing a MS at X will cover nodes X and Y.
Defining these water pathways is a complex operation and
requires intensive modelling. Further details about DCM
can be found in the literature (Lee ; Lee & Deininger
; Liu et al. ). The MSs with the highest demand
and risk index are the optimal MSs.
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5 A. Abo-Monasar & M. Al-Zahrani | Locating water monitoring stations based on vulnerability Water Science & Technology: Water Supply | in press | 2016

Figure 4 | TDS Membership function: (a) Triangular 1 (b) Triangilar 2 (c) Triangular 3 and (d) Tranpezoidal.

The main objective of identifying the optimal locations Pw

i¼1 (di,j xi )
of MSs in WDN is to increase the representativeness of 1 (5)
di
the monitoring system and, consequently, maximize the
monitored (covered) demand, taking into consideration
where m is the number of total nodes covered by node i, di,j
the existing risks associated with delivering water to each
is the demand at node j covered by node i, Ij is the risk index
region. Mathematically, the objective function for maximiz-
for node j, xi is an integer value that determines if there is or
ing the coverage can be expressed as follows:
there is no MS at node i, n is the number of total nodes in
the network, MS is the maximum allowable number of
X
n
Max Di xi (2) MSs to be used for the network, and w is the number of
i¼1 potential monitoring station (PMS) covered by node i.
Furthermore, regional constraint was added to ensure
X
m that every region in the network will have at least one MS
Di ¼ di,j Ij (3) as shown in Equation (6).
j¼1
Xz
xA,i  1 (6)
subjected to: i¼1

where z is the total number of MSs in region A and xA,i is an

X
n
xi  MS (4) integer variable xi for nodes in region A. Figure 5 shows the
i¼1 flowchart summarizing the process of locating MSs.
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6 A. Abo-Monasar & M. Al-Zahrani | Locating water monitoring stations based on vulnerability Water Science & Technology: Water Supply | in press | 2016

Table 1 | Fuzzy sets thresholds and types

Thresholds

Parameter Nature of fuzzy set A B C D E F Type

TDS Data (ppm) 0 300 500 700 ∞ Triangular 1

W
Temperature Data (C ) 0 20 25 30 100 Triangular 1
pH Data 0 5.5 6.5 8.5 9.5 14 Trapezoidal
Free chlorine Data (ppm) 0 0.2 0.3 1.2 1.3 ∞ Trapezoidal
Turbidity Data (NTU) 0 0.5 0.8 1 ∞ Triangular 1
Pipes type Percentage of badness 0 25 50 75 100 Triangular 3
Potential industrial intrusion Percentage by area 0 25 50 75 100 Triangular 3
Pipe age (Option 2) Average age 0 20 30 40 60 Triangular 2
Pipe break (Option 3) Breakage ratio 0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1 Triangular 3
Schools No. of elementary students 0 709 1,418 2,835 ∞ Triangular 1
No. of intermediate students 0 317 633 1,266 ∞ Triangular 1
No. of secondary students 0 273 546 1,092 ∞ Triangular 1
Hospitals No. of beds 0 40 80 120 160 ∞ Triangular 2
Pressure Nodes with low and high pressure (%) 0 25 50 100 Triangular 2
Optimal diversions (%) 0 25 50 100 Triangular 2
Velocity Pipes with low and high velocity (%) 0 25 50 100 Triangular 2
Water age Nodes with high water age 0 25 50 100 Triangular 2
Population Population density 0 9,420 18,840 300,000 Triangular 2
Sewer system coverage Percentage of area not covered by sewer System 0 25 50 75 100 Triangular 3
Water table Dry-wet pipes (%) 0 25 50 100 Triangular 2

APPLICATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The presented approach was applied to a real WDN to Risk prioritization

enhance the existing monitoring system and to illustrate
the execution of the proposed approach.
Study area
The developed approach was applied to Al-Khobar WDN
which is located in the Eastern Coast of Saudi Arabia. The
2 For hydraulic index which includes pressure, velocity
city has an area of approximately 64 km with a population
of about 580,000, which is expected to rise to approximately
814,000 by 2025 (MEP ). The total length of the network
is approximately 472,652 m. Desalinated water from Al-Azi-
ziah plant and groundwater wells are the two main sources
of water supply for Al-Khobar WDN. Detailed information
about Al-Khobar WDN and its hydraulics has been reported
by Al-Zahrani & Al-Ghamdi (). Figure 6 shows the skel-
eton of Al-Khobar WDN.
First, Al-Khobar network is divided into several regions
based on the locations of the existing water quality MSs.
Thiessen method was used to divide the WDN into different
regions as shown in Figure 7(a). Next, based on the collected
data, the fuzzy sets thresholds and types summarized in
Table 1 are used to develop the risk indices.
and water age, the analysis of these components showed
that the hydraulic properties in general are within the
acceptable limits. The average pressure for all demand
scenarios for all the regions varies between 7 and 41 m.
The highest pressure in the city usually occurred at the
city center, especially at region 94 and its surroundings,
since the main pumping station is located in this region.
The average velocity for all demand scenarios is ranging
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7 A. Abo-Monasar & M. Al-Zahrani | Locating water monitoring stations based on vulnerability
Figure 5 | Flow chart summarizing the procedure of locating optimal MSs.
between 0 and 4.58 m/s. Although very few pipes have a
velocity of 2 m/s or higher, the most frequent violations
were velocities lower than 0.4 m/s. Unlike pressure and
velocity, water age is within the recommended range in
all regions for all demand scenarios, which implies that
water age will have no effect in the prioritization of risk
and developing the hydraulic index. A summary of the
Water Science & Technology: Water Supply | in press | 2016
highest and lowest risk indices for all regions is shown in
Table 2.
Infrastructure and structure integrity of the WDN were
judged based on pipe breaks, age and material, in addition
to potential intrusions of wastewater or industrial waste in
case of the occurrence of pipe breaks. Historical records
of Al-Khobar municipality indicate that most pipe breaks
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8 A. Abo-Monasar & M. Al-Zahrani | Locating water monitoring stations based on vulnerability Water Science & Technology: Water Supply | in press | 2016

Figure 6 | Skeleton of Al-Khobar WDN.

occurred in the central and southern regions of the city have been widely reported in asbestos pipes. According to
which are the oldest in the city (44 years). The main pipe Al-Khobar water authority, approximately 65% of the total
material in the central and southern regions is asbestos, breaks occurred in asbestos pipes. On the other hand, asbes-
and PVC in the northern regions. Cracks and breakages tos is considered as a carcinogenic material, although its risk
 Uncorrected Proof
9 A. Abo-Monasar & M. Al-Zahrani | Locating water monitoring stations based on vulnerability Water Science & Technology: Water Supply | in press | 2016

Figure 7 | Al-Khobar WDN: (a) sub-regions (b) vulnerability risk index for water quality (c) sensitivity of the regions and (d) total risk index for each region.

relevant to drinking water is not substantial. Accordingly,
the infrastructures in the central and southern regions are
not in good condition and might be a potential source of
intrusions.
Pipe material, age, breaks, sanitary coverage, industrial
and wastewater intrusions, water table levels and soil sur-
rounding pipes give a clear view about the infrastructural
condition of the WDN. It is obvious that the southern
regions of the city have multi issues. Structure integrity
risk index ranges between 0.18 and 0.63 (Table 2). As
expected, regions in the southern part of the city have a
higher risk index compared to the city center and the north-
ern part. Regions in the north, such as 98 and 119, have PVC
pipes, relatively newer pipes, low pipe breakage ratio and no
industrial activity or potential intrusions (either industrial or
wastewater), which explains the relatively low risk index in
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10 A. Abo-Monasar & M. Al-Zahrani | Locating water monitoring stations based on vulnerability Water Science & Technology: Water Supply | in press | 2016

Table 2 | Indices for regions with highest and lowest total risk

Regions

Index 74 75 76 77 79 81 82 94 98 102 103 104 105 119 120 121

Water quality 0.21 0.14 0.18 0.19 0.32 0.26 0.27 0.28 0.20 0.19 0.15 0.20 0.23 0.25 0.24 0.45
Structure integrity 0.59 0.59 0.61 0.59 0.60 0.61 0.63 0.59 0.18 0.18 0.30 0.18 0.18 0.18 0.37 0.43
Hydraulics 0.21 0.80 0.29 0.21 0.21 0.00 0.21 0.75 0.29 0.21 0.21 0.00 0.21 0.22 0.31 0.30
Vulnerability 0.34 0.51 0.36 0.33 0.38 0.29 0.37 0.54 0.22 0.19 0.22 0.12 0.20 0.21 0.31 0.40
Sensitivity 0.75 0.68 0.35 0.26 0.17 0.03 0.06 0.86 0.46 0.21 0.39 0.10 0.10 0.14 0.60 0.59
Total risk 0.54 0.60 0.35 0.30 0.28 0.16 0.21 0.70 0.34 0.20 0.30 0.11 0.15 0.18 0.45 0.49

these regions. Regions in the south, such as 79 and 82, have
asbestos pipes, older pipes, high pipe breakage ratio and
industrial potential intrusions, which explains the higher
risk index compared to the northern regions. For other par-
ameters (TDS, pH, free chlorine, temperature and turbidity),
the analysis indicates that they are within the acceptable
standards. Accordingly, a water quality risk index for each
region was developed by aggregating the physico-chemical
and microbial factors as shown in Table 2. It is obvious
that the water quality risk is low in the WDN since water
quality parameters are generally within the recommended
standards. Water quality indices range between 0.14 and
0.43, which is a relatively low risk (Table 2).
The vulnerability index of the WDN is developed by
aggregating the hydraulic properties, water quality and struc-
tural integrity. The major factors affecting vulnerability are
hydraulic properties and structure integrity since the water
quality risk index is low all over the city. Regions which
have a high risk due to hydraulic properties and structure
integrity, i.e. regions 75 and 94, are the regions in the city
center which have high vulnerability. Regions in the north,
such as 98 and 102, have a low risk in terms of hydraulic
properties and structure integrity, which is reflected in the
vulnerability index. Regions in the extreme south of the
city, such as regions 77 and 82, have a low risk index due
to hydraulic properties, but they have a high risk index
due to structure integrity, which explains why the vulner-
ability indices in that zone are higher than the northern
regions but at the same time less than the regions in the
city center, as shown in Figure 7(b).
Sensitivity of the region gives a sense of possible health
risk consequences in case of any possible contaminant
intrusion to the network. Standard of living, population den-
sity, activity, number of beds in hospitals and number of
students are measures for regional sensitivity in case of
any possible deterioration of water quality within the
WDN. There are groups in the community who are more
sensitive to any deterioration of water quality than the
other groups. Patients and school students, as an example,
are more sensitive to waterborne illnesses and their
immune system is either weak or not fully developed (Fran-
cisque et al. ). Aggregation of all these factors
determines the sensitivity of each region. It is obvious that
regions 74, 75, 94, 120 and 121 are more sensitive than
the other regions. These factors were aggregated to develop
the sensitivity risk index for the different regions in the city
as shown in Figure 7(c). The sensitivity index ranges
between 0.03 and 0.86. Regions in the center, such as 74,
75, 94 and 121, are more sensitive to any deterioration of
water quality in the WDN. Regions in the north and in the
south, such as 81, 82, 102 and 119, have the least sensitivity
mainly because they have low population density, low
number of students and less residential areas.
Total regional risk is based on the aggregations of vul-
nerability and sensitivity of each region. Total risk indices,
as shown in Figure 7(d), range between 0.11 and 0.70. In
general, the results indicate that northern and southern
regions have the least risk index, which is a reflection of
the generally low vulnerability and sensitivity of these
regions. Regions in the city center are the most sensitive
regions in the city, as shown in Figure 7(d). This explains
the relatively high risk in the city center compared to the
other regions in the city. Table 2 shows the detailed risk indi-
ces for all the regions.
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11 A. Abo-Monasar & M. Al-Zahrani | Locating water monitoring stations based on vulnerability
Locating MSs
Currently, there are 15 MSs distributed over Al-Khobar
WDN as shown in Figure 8. In general, most of the MSs
are located close to major pumping locations such as
Makkah tank, central pumping stations and pumping wells
to monitor water quality directly after pumping to ensure
that chlorine levels and TDS are within the acceptable
limits. However, this distribution of MSs ignores the fact
that water quality can be deteriorated during delivery
through contaminant intrusions, cracks or due to intentional
criminal and/or terrorist acts.
In Al-Khobar WDN, there are 871 non-zero nodes,
water demand nodes, which can be considered as PMSs
and have an equal chance of being chosen during the optim-
ization process based on the objective functions and
constraints defined previously.
Figure 8 | Locations of MSs at Al-Khobar WDN.
Water Science & Technology: Water Supply | in press | 2016
Risk prioritization using FSE showed that each region
has different characteristics than the other regions, which
makes the expected consequences in case of water quality
deterioration vary for the different regions. Severe conse-
quences are expected in some regions more than the
others since these regions are having higher risk (vulner-
ability and sensitivity). Therefore, demand and regional
risk were used to optimally locate the MSs.
It was noticed that the demand coverage of the monitor-
ing system increases as the number of the proposed MSs
increases, as shown in Table 3. Based on the current prac-
tices with 15 MSs, only 19.56% of the demand can be
monitored; however, the coverage increased to 59.18%
when 50 MSs were used. Figure 9 shows the optimal distri-
bution of MSs when 15, 20, 30 and 50 MSs were proposed.
Each region is monitored by at least one MS as shown in
Figure 9, with the exception of region 81, which is not
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12 A. Abo-Monasar & M. Al-Zahrani | Locating water monitoring stations based on vulnerability Water Science & Technology: Water Supply | in press | 2016

Table 3 | Percentage of demand coverage for the proposed MSs located in the central area of the city compared to the
extreme northern and southern parts. The central part of
Number of MSs 15 20 30 50 the city is the most populated zone in the city with higher
Demand coverage (%) 19.56 31.94 44.97 59.18 demand and higher sensitivity. In addition, the risk assess-
ment showed that the central regions are also vulnerable.
populated and, accordingly, it is not served by the distri- Accordingly, the higher number of MSs is justified by the
bution network. The figure indicates that more MSs are high demand and high risk in these regions.

Figure 9 | Locations of proposed MSs for: (a) 15 MSs (b) 20 MSs (c) 30 MSs and (d) 50 MSs.
 Uncorrected Proof
13 A. Abo-Monasar & M. Al-Zahrani | Locating water monitoring stations based on vulnerability
CONCLUSIONS
Many guidelines and best practices have been developed in the
past for an effective water quality monitoring in WDN. In most
of the cases, MSs are located based on the water demand.
Nodes with higher water demand are more likely to be con-
sidered as a MS since it will monitor significant amount of
water in the WDN. However, these considerations ignore the
fact that there are other factors which might have a significant
effect on locating the MSs, such as the vulnerability of the
system itself and sensitivity of population to the consequences
of water quality deterioration. Vulnerable and sensitive regions
deserve more monitoring compared to the other regions. This
study proposed an approach for locating MSs based on water
demand, the vulnerability of the system and population sensi-
tivity. For this purpose, a framework modelling based on FSE
was constructed to develop risk indices for the regions in the
WDN. These indices as well as water demand were used as
key optimization parameters to determine the optimal
locations of the MSs. The developed model was applied to
Al-Khobar WDN considering that several sets of MSs were
examined. The study found that: (1) most of the MSs are located
in the central regions in the WDN since they have the highest
water demand, vulnerability and sensitivity and (2) the pro-
posed approach ensures that every region in the city will be
monitored by at least one MS regardless of the demand.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge the support provided
by the Deanship of Scientific Research (DSR) at King Fahd
University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) for funding
this work through project No. RG1004-1&2. Thanks are also
extended to the Ministry of Water (Al-Khobar branch),
Ministry of Education and Ministry of Economy & Planning
for providing the necessary data to complete the study.
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