Technical Note

Geospatial and Hydraulic Simulation to Design District

Metered Areas for Large Water Distribution Networks
Jorge E. Pesantez, S.M.ASCE 1; Emily Zechman Berglund, Ph.D., M.ASCE 2;
and G. Mahinthakumar, Ph.D., M.ASCE 3

Abstract: Water distribution systems can be divided into district metered areas (DMAs) to improve their management. DMAs are
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individual service regions within a distribution system that have a defined set of supply sources, and hydraulic and quality parameters
can be controlled at their entrances. Designing DMA configurations to meet management goals, such as pressure or demand uni-
formity, is challenging because of the unique topological conditions of each water system, the variability in water demand required by
each geographic zone, and the high interconnection of pipes within water systems. This research couples geospatial analysis with a
hydraulic simulator to design DMAs for a highly constrained large water network. Solutions specify modifications of valve settings
and tank operations and the addition of new pipes to the network. The performance of the DMA design is evaluated based on ob-
jectives to minimize implementation cost, demand similarity, pressure uniformity, and water age and constraints related to pressure
and number of entrances per district. The methodology is applied to design DMAs for E-Town, a large water system that was pre-
sented at the Battle of Water Networks District Metered Areas. The coupled approach identifies DMA designs that satisfy constraints
with satisfactory performance for multiple objectives. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)WR.1943-5452.0001243. © 2020 American Society of
Civil Engineers.
Author keywords: Urban water systems; District metered areas (DMAs); Hydraulic modeling; Geospatial tools.

Introduction
Water distribution systems (WDSs) are composed of highly inter-
connected loops of pipes, and the main purpose of the WDS is to
supply water to connected customers while satisfying hydraulic
and water quality parameters. With the development of new urban
areas, water systems have been expanded to provide water to new
settlements, and the difficulty of controlling the performance of a
system increases with its size. To improve control of large net-
works, utilities define sectors or zones (Di Nardo et al. 2013)
and aggregate the analysis of small networks to gain better insight
and control over the performance of the network as a whole. The
concept of a district metered area (DMA) was introduced as a de-
limited zone within a water distribution system to address leakage
problems (Water Research Centre 1980), where boundaries are de-
fined and hydraulic parameters can be controlled at the entrance of
each DMA.
Dividing a WDS into DMAs is a nontrivial process, due to
the unique characteristic of water distribution networks. One of
the most important features of a water network is reliability, or
the ability to provide noninterrupted service. Therefore, the de-
sign of DMAs is constrained by a potential decrease in reliability
1
Ph.D. Student, Dept. of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engi-
neering, North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh 27695, NC (corresponding
author). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1537-6006. Email: jpesant@
ncsu.edu
2
Professor, Dept. of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineer-
ing, North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh 27695, NC.
3
Professor, Dept. of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering,
North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh 27695, NC.
Note. This manuscript was submitted on September 25, 2019; approved
on February 7, 2020; published online on May 11, 2020. Discussion period
open until October 11, 2020; separate discussions must be submitted for
individual papers. This technical note is part of the Journal of Water Re-
sources Planning and Management, © ASCE, ISSN 0733-9496.
when defining the boundaries of the districts, due to the instal-
lation of shut-off valves that reduce redundancy in a looped
system (Gomes et al. 2015). Stagnation may occur through
the introduction of new dead ends, and water quality may be
impacted (Armand et al. 2018). The implementation of DMAs
may also be constrained by economics because retrofitting a
WDS into DMAs requires the installation of flow meters and
in some cases pressure-reducing valves (PRVs) to isolate subsec-
tions (Galdiero et al. 2015). On the other hand, the implemen-
tation of DMAs can allow a utility to perform water balances and
address leakage problems. Contaminants that are introduced to
the WDS can be identified more quickly if the WDS is sectorized
using DMAs, leading to a more secure system (Grayman et al.
2009; Di Nardo et al. 2014).
Several methodologies have been developed to design DMAs
for water distribution systems. DMAs were used initially for leakage
management applications, and utilities performed water balance
audits to identify nonrevenue water. Exhaustive search procedures
were improved by incorporating engineering judgment to identify
zones with similar geographical and topographic characteristics
(MacDonald and Yates 2005; Morrison et al. 2007). Graph theory
and partitioning techniques coupled with optimization algorithms
have been widely applied to automate the design process (Herrera
2011; Perelman and Ostfeld 2011; Diao et al. 2013; Di Nardo et al.
2016). Researchers have also developed social network analyses,
community structure, and multiobjective optimization within multi-
stage procedures (De Paola et al. 2014; Scarpa et al. 2016; Brentan
et al. 2017; Liu and Han 2018). These methodologies consider de-
sign criteria based on performance indices that include minimizing
energy consumption (Di Nardo et al. 2013), implementation costs
(Galdiero et al. 2015), and the variability of water demand among
districts (Pesantez et al. 2019).
To assess different approaches to design DMAs, the Water
Distribution Systems Analysis Conference (WDSA) launched the

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J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 2020, 146(7): 06020010

 Battle of Water Networks District Metered Areas (BWNDMA) in
July 2016 (Saldarriaga et al. 2016). Participants in the competition
submitted solutions to specify the DMA configuration for a large
real water network, E-Town, which provides water to more than
300,000 people. Solutions were evaluated using a set of eight ob-
jective functions and four constraints.
This research reports an approach and solution to the multi-
objective problem proposed by the BWNDMA. The approach
reported in this manuscript uses geospatial analysis to identify
the main pipes of the system and partition the network into
an initial set of clusters. A hydraulic simulator was applied
to evaluate the network and implement modifications to define
boundaries and entrances to create DMAs from clusters of no-
des. The objective functions and constraints prescribed by the
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BWNDMA (Saldarriaga et al. 2019) were evaluated for DMA
configurations, and an iterative approach evaluated and gener-
ated alternative configurations to find feasible solutions to
the highly constrained problem. This approach selected the final
solution, or DMA configuration, based on demand similarity
across DMAs.
The water distribution network of E-Town is represented by a
calibrated hydraulic model composed of 11,085 junctions and
13,913 links (Saldarriaga et al. 2019). E-Town’s original DMA
configuration (15 districts) is not capable of distributing water
to its customers at adequate pressures and flow rates. Water sources
for the system vary during the year. During the rainy season, which
has a longer duration than the dry season, the system works by
gravity with water supplied by an upland reservoir, and water flows
from three water treatment plants: Bachue, Cuza, and Bochica.
During the dry season, two groundwater sources are added to meet
demands serviced by Mohan and Fagua pump stations because the
available volume from the surface water treatment plants cannot
meet demands.
The BWNDMA developed eight objectives: (1) The number of
DMAs, with the optimum determined by the utility at 15. Solu-
tions with more than 15 DMAs are accepted, and solutions with
less than 15 DMAs are discarded. (2) The differences among sizes
of the DMAs, which are evaluated using the demand similarity
(DS). (3) The cost of implementation, which is evaluated based
on the infrastructure components that are added to the system.
(4 and 5) The pressure uniformity of the system, as proposed by
Alhimiary and Alsuhaily (2007), which is a proxy for evaluating
the energy used by the system and is calculated for the rainy and
dry seasons. (6 and 7) The water age of the system, which is a
metric for water quality and is defined based on the equation
implemented in the BWN-II (Marchi et al. 2014). Water age is
also calculated for the rainy and dry seasons. (8) The operational
changes that are required in the transition between seasons to en-
sure that the DMA configuration meets objectives and constraints
for both seasons.
The BWNDMA proposed a set of constraints as part of the
problem formulation. The maximum number of entrances allowed
per district is two. At each DMA entrance, one or at most two
pressure-reducing valve (PRVs) must be installed to isolate the dis-
tricts and to control the pressure of the nodes located within the
districts. The minimum and maximum pressures at nonzero de-
mand nodes located inside the districts are 15 and 60 m, respec-
tively. The placement of PRVs is required to keep the nonzero
demand nodes within the described range of pressures. The level
of the tanks at the termination of the extended period of simulation
should be equal to or higher than the initial level and should
fluctuate within 10% and 90% of the tank storage during the sim-
ulation. The replacement of pipes was allowed for pipes with a
diameter of 152 mm or higher. Water age must be less than
© ASCE 06020010-2
J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 2020, 146(7): 06020010
60 h. Finally, 55 nonzero demand nodes can be left isolated outside
of any DMA. See Saldarriaga et al. (2019) for a complete descrip-
tion of the DMA design problem for the E-Town system.
Related Research in DMA Design
Overview of Methodologies Used by Teams
Participating in BWNDMA
As described by Saldarriaga et al. (2019), seven teams submitted
feasible solutions to the BWNDMA in 2016. The methodologies
used by teams vary from engineering judgment to multistage
clustering-partitioning procedures. For instance, Gilbert et al.
(2017) used the Porteau version 4.0.10 hydraulic simulator to first
identify the errors present in the original input file and applied a
manual procedure to decrease the hydraulic computational time.
They applied an optimization procedure to minimize the number of
operational changes between seasons. The worked presented by
Salomons et al. (2017) was based on engineering judgment, and
districts were defined based on a water balance of the system.
The settings of physical components (e.g., tanks) were modified
to fulfill the pressure constraints. Martinez Solano et al. (2018) used
the partitioning tool METIS and engineering judgment to analyze
the system based on the peak demand values and a pseudogenetic
algorithm to find the optimal layout of pipe closures. Brentan et al.
(2018) used a coupled approach that included graph clustering and
social network analysis to determine the boundaries of the districts.
Then, three optimization algorithms were applied in series to opti-
mize valve settings and pipe replacements. Rahman and Wu (2018)
presented a multistep simulation-optimization approach using a
commercial hydraulic simulator. A graph theory approach was used
to set DMA entrances. A coupled optimization and fine-tuning
procedure was applied to define the DMA configuration and to im-
prove the remaining objective functions. Similarly, Rahmani et al.
(2018) presented a graph theory and optimization approach. Graph
theory was used to address the demand similarity problem,
followed by a series of optimization procedures to reduce the values
of the objective functions.
Whereas the solutions submitted by other participants have
been reported in respective publications and reviewed by
Saldarriaga et al. (2019), the solution found through the ap-
proach described here has not been published. This paper is in-
cluded as part of the Special Collection on Battle of the Water
Networks District Metered Areas to report the solution that
was found to address the multiobjective problem of designing
DMAs for a real-world water network. The methodology as re-
ported subsequently focused on solving the objective functions
formulated for the BWNDMA.
DMA Design of Large Water Networks
This section presents a description of procedures applied to de-
sign DMAs for real-world all-pipe network models. Because the
application of some methods may be limited for large systems
such as E-Town, we focus our discussion on methods that have
been applied for networks with more than 10,000 junctions.
Though commercial software packages for modeling water net-
works have capabilities for identifying DMAs [e.g., Bentley
(2017)], the published research studies as reviewed subsequently
used EPANET (USEPA 2008) as part of their modeling
solutions.
A large water network, Network2, which was developed for the
Battle of Water Sensor Networks (BWSN) (Ostfeld et al. 2008),
was used to test several DMA design procedures. A manual,
J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage.
 iterative procedure was applied to Network2 and found 43 DMAs
as a feasible solution (Grayman et al. 2009). A second methodol-
ogy developed an automated approach, where nodes were divided
into clusters based on modularity, or the density of links (Diao et al.
2013; Scibetta et al. 2014). A two-stage procedure was used to
identify DMA entrances from the set of boundary nodes generated
through the process of division. The DMA configuration found
41 districts as the optimal solution in terms of modularity. Graph
theory and the recommended DMA size (Morrison et al. 2007)
were also applied to design DMAs for Network2 (Ferrari et al.
2014). The solution approach generated isolated DMAs to remove
the cascade effect among districts, resulting in a 16-DMA design
for Network2. However, as the number of districts decreased, the
number of entrances increased, leading to solutions that may not be
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Diao et al. (2013), and Ferrari et al. (2014). The partition tool
in ArcGIS was used to create subzones within the network. The
partition tool used the number of divisions as an input parameter,
and, in the application presented here, values were explored in the
range of 15 to 25. This sensitivity analysis assesses the effects of
the number of districts on the performance of the solution.
To determine the entrances to each district, EPANET was
automatically run as a hydraulic simulator using the EPANET
MATLAB toolkit (Eliades et al. 2016). A script was written to
run the model repeatedly to simulate alternative solutions, where
alternative pipes were set as open or closed to delineate DMAs,
and potential pipes that could serve as boundaries (with a closed
status) were determined through the geospatial process, described
previously. Because the maximum number of allowed entrances is

practical to implement, due to the cost of implementation. Finally, a two, only a handful of solutions were generated as feasible solu-
multiobjective optimization approach was applied for Network2 tions. Closing pipes to determine the DMA entrances affects the
(Zhang et al. 2017) that extended the definition of modularity to hydraulic performance of the model; therefore, an iterative pro-
include similarity among pressures. Trade-offs were explored for cedure was applied to obtain feasible DMA configurations.
three objectives: the number of boundary pipes, pressure uniform- The next step of the procedure evaluated the objectives of each
ity, and water age uniformity. feasible DMA configuration. The number of DMAs, demand sim-
The application of graph partitioning as a multistage procedure ilarity, investment cost, pressure uniformity, and water age were
to cluster and isolate districts, as proposed by Di Nardo et al. (2013), evaluated. Because there are no specific preferences for the objec-
was applied to a large network of 19,402 nodes in Singapore (Sela tives, and in accordance with previous published works (Rahman
Perelman et al. 2015). and Wu 2018; Salomons et al. 2017), we also used demand sim-
One study beyond those reported by the BWNDMA developed ilarity as the criterion to select the final solution.
a multistage procedure to design DMAs for the large E-Town With the solution selected in the rainy season, operational
water network (Pesantez et al. 2019). The approach relaxed the changes were needed for the dry season. Pressure-reducing valves
problem statement developed for the BWNDMA to focus on a were placed to limit high pressures at nodes located close to the
single-objective problem and maximize demand similarity. The pumping stations. PRVs were located at the entrance of each dis-
framework coupled a weighted clustering approach to initialize trict, and additional PRVs were included to control pressures at no-
DMAs, an optimization method to minimize variability in water des as needed. The final solution evaluated with the operational
demand among DMAs, and a heuristic method to fine-tune DMA
changes proposed for the dry season was selected based on the min-
boundaries.
imum investment cost. Fig. 1 shows the flowchart of this iterative
Most of the design approaches that were developed and applied
procedure.
for large water distribution networks used multistage procedures, in
which clustering algorithms were applied first, followed by optimi-
zation techniques and engineering judgment. The computational
complexity of automated approaches may become impractical for
large water networks with multiple objective functions, and divid-
ing procedures into sequential steps is necessary to reduce compu-
tational complexity. Studies by Gilbert et al. (2017) and Salomons
et al. (2017) concluded that care should be used when replacing
engineering judgement with optimization and software tools for
large real-world highly constrained networks, such as E-Town. This
research demonstrates a joint cognitive approach, in which engi-
neering judgement, geospatial analysis, and hydraulic simulation
are coupled within a multistage procedure.

Methodology

Overview
The methodology presented in this manuscript aims to obtain a fea-
sible solution to the complex problem posed by the BWNDMA.
Similar to approaches used by other BWNDMA participants
(Salomons et al. 2017), engineering judgement was used to cor-
rect the hydraulic issues of the original network as part of a pre-
liminary analysis.
A widely used geospatial tool (ArcGIS version 10.4) was
applied to perform geospatial analysis and to select the main
pipes of the system and the zones connected to them to obtain a
layout of the system’s functioning. This analysis was also included
Fig. 1. Flowchart of the proposed methodology.
as a step in the approaches developed by Grayman et al. (2009),

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J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 2020, 146(7): 06020010

 Table 1. Modifications to the E-Town original input file
Link Label Initial status Modified status
Valve Tank 1 FCV None Open
Valve Tank 5 FCV None Open
Pipe 8,235 Closed Open
Pipe 2,373 Closed Open
Tank 2, 6, 8 On Disconnected
Tank 3, 4, 5, 9, 10 On Bypassed
Preliminary Analysis
Preliminary analysis was applied to assess the supply capacity of
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the network and the average and hourly demand at the system
level. In this step, we identified issues related to water shortages
or operational problems, which can be addressed in subsequent
steps of the analysis. For E-Town, the two drinking water treat-
ment plants supply a total of 2,850 L/s during the rainy season and
2,080 L/s during the dry season. The average systemwide demand
is 1,925 L/s but the peak hourly demand of the system exceeds the
capacity at 2,953 L/s at 7 a.m. The storage capacity and configu-
ration of the existing tanks were evaluated to ensure that adequate
pressures were provided in the system. Next, the topography of
the network was analyzed to identify zones of considerable ele-
vation differences, which can produce undesirable variable pres-
sure distribution and require the installation of pressure-reducing
valves to mitigate high pressures. This analysis identified one zone
in the network where elevation ranges from 1.0 to 63.0 m. Meeting
minimum pressures of 15 m at high elevations and maximum
pressures of 60 m at low elevations is difficult in this area of
the network, reducing the number of feasible solutions for DMA
configurations.
Based on the analysis of network operations, components were
updated as shown in Table 1 to improve the hydraulic performance
of the model. Preliminary analysis identified that the hydraulic
model convergence was slowed due to several tanks located close
together that emptied and filled at every second during the 168-h
period of simulation. The model input file was modified to bypass
these tanks, and a set of critical pipes and valves surrounding the
tanks were opened. The original hydraulic model also reported neg-
ative pressures at several nonzero demand nodes at the peak hourly
demand. Preliminary analysis identified that closed valves caused
negative pressures, and valves at Tank 1 and Tank 5 were opened
to mitigate these negative pressures. The set of changes shown in
Table 1 highlights the importance of applying engineering judgement
to analyze the system and improve operational performance.
Geospatial Analysis
Geospatial analysis was applied to split the network into clusters
(possible DMAs) using ArcGIS. First, the input file was used to
map the graph representing the network into ArcMap, which is the
main component of ArcGIS that performs geospatial analysis. The
main pipes were identified as the links of the graph with a diameter
of at least 300 mm, which is the same criteria used by Grayman
et al. (2009), Diao et al. (2013), and Ferrari et al. (2014). Mapping
the system using ArcMap revealed that a few terminal nodes were
connected directly to the main pipes. These nodes remained outside
of the DMA configurations until a set of feasible solutions could be
achieved. Due to the topography and topology of the system, some
clusters were already isolated and are kept as obligatory DMAs.
Whereas other data could be used to identify DMAs based on
existing infrastructure (e.g., highways, railroads), pressure zone
© ASCE 06020010-4
J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 2020, 146(7): 06020010
boundaries, and political boundaries, for the proposed problem,
only the model of the water network was made available. A geo-
spatial tool, the split polygon with a grid index feature, was applied
to divide the network into several clusters. The shapes of the clus-
ters were updated with each cut (ArcGIS), based on the scale
factor of the grid, which is the only input required by the split poly-
gon tool. The factor is a function of the topology of the network and
the desired number of clusters, or potential DMAs. The number of
divisions was explored between 15 and 25 to search for the lowest
number of DMAs that would meet other objectives.
After the layout of different clusters was generated, the next step
was applied to define the boundary pipes and entrances to delineate
clusters as DMAs. From the GIS file, the attribute “Diameter” was
sorted in descending order, and the indices of the smallest diam-
eters were stored as possible entrances, which would be evaluated
by the hydraulic simulation. An iterative approach based on engi-
neering judgement was used to test the hydraulic feasibility of
solutions and reassess the entrances to the DMAs using geospatial
analysis, which is similar to the iterative and engineering judgement
approach to obtain a feasible solution taken by Salomons et al.
(2017). The hydraulic simulation is described in the following
section.
Hydraulic Simulation
The list of indices corresponding to possible entrances for each sub-
zone was passed to EPANET. Using the MATLAB EPANET tool-
kit, entrances were closed to isolate each subzone and convert it
into a DMA. EPANET was used to simulate the pipe network once
DMAs were determined and pipes were set as closed or opened in
the input file. The toolkit provided an automatic approach to edit
pipe status, controls for tank levels, and pump settings and to
execute hundreds of simulations. After each simulation, the con-
straints were evaluated, and solutions were discarded if they did
not meet constraints on water age (less than 60 h) or the number
of nodes that were isolated and not included in any DMA (less than
55). Few solutions were feasible. Solutions that violated only pres-
sure or tank water level constraints were kept for further analysis.
For these solutions, the controls and settings of the valves were
edited to meet the constraints and improve the performance of
infeasible and feasible solutions. The controls were edited mainly
to prevent abrupt fluctuations of the water level of the tanks,
whereas existing and new valves (especially PRVs) were manipu-
lated to reduce high pressures in some DMAs.
An iterative procedure was applied to explore solutions using
the partitioned graph as an input to the hydraulic simulator and
evaluating each solution using the MATLAB EPANET toolkit until
10 alternative solutions were identified. Finally, the best solution in
terms of demand similarity (DS) was selected and further fine-
tuned by opening valves and adding more storage to the system.
As described by Saldarriaga et al. (2019), the DMA configura-
tion designed for the rainy season should also work during the dry
season with a minimum number of operational changes. During
the dry season, there is a substantial decrease of inflow from the
three water treatment plants, and to cope with this issue, E-Town
adds two pump stations, as described by Saldarriaga et al. (2016).
During the rainy season, the DMA configuration is identified based
on the assumption that the pump stations do not operate. During the
dry season, the pump stations are operational, and the water net-
work requires modifications to maintain the pressure of nonzero
demand nodes within the required range of 15–60 m. Due to the
new flow direction of pipes close to the pump stations, pressure-
reducing valves were placed to limit high pressures at nodes
that violated the pressure constraints. With new water sources,
J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage.
 14 15 nodes that are connected to a main pipe were left outside the final
12 9
2 design as required by the BWNDMA.
17 5
11
13 8
18 10 E-Town DMA Configuration
3 For the layout of our DMA configuration, we found that DMAs in
6
16 4 7 the northern and southern sections of the system were obligatory
due to the topography and topology of the network (Fig. 2). In
northern E-Town, DMAs 5 and 14 were already isolated from
the network. Similarly, in southern, eastern, and western E-Town,
DMAs 1, 3, and 16 were isolated. On the other hand, identifying
1
DMAs in the central part of E-Town was challenging due to the
high interconnection of the nodes. This section of E-Town is a dense
highly looped zone, and several iterations were required to identify
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the required number of entrances for these districts (6, 9, 12, 13, 17).
Additionally, in southern E-Town, pressures were low, and solutions
were explored to maintain the pressure above the minimum (15 m of
water) within the two identified districts (DMAs 1 and 16).

Fig. 2. E-Town DMA configuration.

the pressure at nodes located close to the pumping stations in-
creased. PRVs were placed to mitigate high pressures using the en-
trance of each DMA as an initial point to place PRVs. However, for
some nodes located far away from the entrances, PRVs did not re-
duce the pressure sufficiently. Therefore, PRVs were also needed
close to terminal nodes to comply with the maximum pressure con-
straint for the dry season. Once all the constraints were satisfied for
the dry season, we selected the option that reported the lowest cost
as our final solution for the rainy and dry seasons. The list of valve
adjustments for the network is reported in Table 4 presented in the
Appendix section.
Results and Discussion
Demand similarity (Pesantez et al. 2019) is used to evaluate the
final solution generated through the procedure described in this
manuscript. The solution reported has a total of 18 DMAs, meets
constraints, and has a low DS value. Fifty-five nonzero demand
Hydraulic Values of the DMAs
This section presents topographic and hydraulic characteristics of
the DMAs during the rainy season which, as described previously,
is the more prevalent season of the year. As expected, the number
of boundary pipes for some districts was high. To comply with
the limit on the number of entrances, several pipes feeding down-
stream districts were closed (Table 2). Despite closing these
pipes, the number of exits from upstream to downstream districts
remained high. The problem description as formulated by the
BWNDMA assumed that for each exit, a flow meter was already
installed and the investment cost was not affected by this compo-
nent (Saldarriaga et al. 2019). However, the aggregated cost of
placing flow meters at each exit would be considerable and should
be considered in the design cost of a DMA. The range of reported
pressures complied with the rules of the BWNDMA where nodes
within a DMA can report a minimum and maximum pressure of
15 and 60 m of water, respectively. Table 2 shows that the differ-
ence between the highest and lowest point of each district ranged
from 10 to 62 m. For DMA designs that focus on pressure uni-
formity, pressure zones can first be delineated with a low variabil-
ity in elevation as a prior step. Using elevation as an approach to

Table 2. Hydraulic values of the districts

Number of Lowest Highest Minimum Maximum
Number of Number of closed Number of Number elevation elevation pressure pressure
DMA entrances boundaries boundaries exits of PRVs (m) (m) (m of H2 0) (m of H2 0)
1 1 2 0 1 23 1 63 16 49
2 1 11 5 5 1 14 28 26 57
3 2 6 0 4 2 27 65 20 59
4 1 8 6 1 1 14 29 41 56
5 2 2 0 0 5 8 67 25 56
6 2 8 3 3 7 8 61 18 58
7 1 11 2 8 4 0 49 20 38
8 2 39 6 31 2 9 55 26 46
9 1 16 6 9 2 9 23 33 45
10 2 6 2 2 2 23 47 20 33
11 2 23 7 14 3 15 63 20 53
12 2 24 12 10 2 1 23 39 60
13 2 20 12 6 2 1 10 39 47
14 1 4 3 0 1 2 41 21 58
15 2 7 1 4 4 11 81 15 59
16 2 3 1 0 2 0 46 15 58
17 2 22 9 11 2 4 14 37 46
18 2 6 2 2 2 2 18 43 59

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 Table 3. Results of the objective functions for the E-Town DMA design
Objective function Value
DMA index 3
DS 5.67 × 107
Total cost ($) 440,721.12
Operational changes 15
Pressure uniformity (rainy) 368.04
Pressure uniformity (dry) 381.11
Water age (rainy) (h) 0.0052
Water age (dry) (h) 1.8430
cluster nodes may lead to a DMA configuration reporting a low
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pressure nonuniformity value. Pressure uniformity was one of
the objective functions of the BWDNDMA problem, though the
approach focused primarily on demand similarity to represent
DMA size.
Results of the Objective Functions
Number of DMAs
The objective function values of the solution reported here are pre-
sented in Table 3. Though the number of DMAs defined by the
utility as manageable and convenient was 15, our solution used an
18-DMA configuration, which produced the lowest value of DS
among districts. The DS value could not be further decreased due
to geographic characteristics that constrained the expansion of cer-
tain districts, and the number of DMAs could not be further
reduced. The main objective of the coupled procedure was to obtain
a feasible general solution for this complex problem; therefore,
single objectives such as DS can be improved at the expense of
other conflicting objectives. Further work explores algorithmic ap-
proaches to obtain a configuration with similar number of users in
each DMA, based on total water demand (Pesantez et al. 2019).
The results obtained by this procedure are compared with
the results reported by Saldarriaga et al. (2019). Table 3 shows that
for some objective functions, this solution outperformed some
solutions published by other participants, specifically in terms of
number of required DMAs, pressure uniformity, and investment
cost. A sensitivity analysis of our approach was evaluated based on
the outcomes of different numbers of DMAs (from 15 to 25, as
explained previously), where the 18-district configuration provided
the best solution in terms of DS and cost of investment.
Size of the Districts and Cost of Intervention
The size of districts evaluated in terms of demand similarity was
below the average of the DS values reported in the BWNDMA
overview paper. The investment cost for the DMA configuration
reported here was around US $440,000, or approximately US
$40 per node. The cost is related to the number of PRVs needed
to identify the reported DMA configuration and to keep the pres-
sure of nonzero demand nodes within the requested range. The cost
reported by this study ranked second compared to the solutions
submitted to the BWNDMA (Saldarriaga et al. 2019). A compre-
hensive analysis is required to evaluate the cost-to-benefit ratio of
the solution and is part of ongoing research.
Pressure Uniformity
Pressure uniformity values were substantially affected by the 55 non-
zero demand nodes located outside the DMA configuration. Because
© ASCE 06020010-6
J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 2020, 146(7): 06020010
these nodes are connected directly to the main pipes of the system,
their pressure may be substantially higher than the maximum pres-
sure of nodes within a DMA (60 m). However, when comparing the
pressure uniformity reported in this work with those reported by the
rest of the BWNDMA participants, it is 6% higher than the average
pressure uniformity. Managing pressure is difficult for large DMAs
because pressure throughout the district is driven by the pressure at
the entrances of the districts. Therefore, the variability in pressure
among demand nodes was a high value for all the feasible solutions.
Water Age
The values for water age for both seasons were at the constraint
defined by the BWNDMA. The water age exceeded 60 h at only
2% of nonzero demand nodes. Most solutions reported by the
BWNDMA also reported low water age at most nodes, with only
a few nodes as outliers (Saldarriaga et al. 2019).
Operational Changes
Few modifications were required to use the DMA configuration in
the dry season. The settings of 15 PRVs were modified to decrease
pressure to a range of 15–60 m of head of water. Ten pipes were
changed from closed to open, and these changes did not count
as operational changes as specified by the BWNDMA. A few con-
trols were applied for a set of pumps that changed the flow direction
in the southern part of the system. These operations can be auto-
matically defined by the utility to optimize its operations. Please
refer to Tables 5 and 6 presented in the Appendix section, where
we show in detail the required operational changes between
seasons. One of the main shortcomings of the BWNDMA, as dis-
cussed by others (Rahman and Wu 2018; Saldarriaga et al. 2019),
was that the solution cannot specify different DMA configurations
between seasons. Changes in configurations could benefit both the
stated goal of the solution (demand similarity) and other metrics,
such as pressure uniformity.
These results are part of a study that was reported specifically for
the special edition of the Battle of Water Networks District Metered
Areas in which the authors participated. In the summary reported by
Saldarriaga et al. (2019), this solution is not cited, and the report
herein completes the set of seven submitted solutions. Similar to
other approaches completed for the BWNDMA, we did not imple-
ment an optimization algorithm and used primarily engineering
judgement and trial-and-error procedures (Salomons et al. 2017).
The results reported by this work compare favorably with other so-
lutions reported by Saldarriaga et al. (2019), and our approach out-
performs several works that are based on multistage optimization
techniques. Due to the complexity of solving a real-world highly
constrained problem and the difficulty of obtaining an initial feasible
solution, this work that was presented for the BWNDMA offers a
valid alternative. For some optimization algorithms, identifying a
feasible solution can be a critical first step, and we include the details
and the input file of the solution reported here to allow other re-
searchers to build on this work. Please see the supplemental infor-
mation for the EPANET input files for rainy and dry seasons.
Conclusions
The research presented in this paper developed a coupled approach
using engineering judgement to perform geospatial analysis and
hydraulic simulations to design DMAs for a large real-world water
network. When working with large networks and multiple objec-
tives, the procedure identified a feasible solution, which was a
major challenge posed by the BWNDMA, as highlighted by other
J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage.
 participants (Salomons et al. 2017; Gilbert et al. 2017). The meth- Table 4. (Continued.)
odology that was applied here explored capabilities of geospatial Valve diameter Valve setting Valve cost
tools in the context of the management of WDS. The complexity Valve ID (mm) (m) ($)
of the problem created difficulties in applying readily available op- 5,101 508 59 7,750
timization tools, and the multistage approach developed in this 5,102 254 55 2,240
research can reduce the solution time of algorithms and divide 5,571 508 40 7,750
the design problem into manageable pieces. Though this research 6,072 254 55 2,240
applied a manual, iterative approach, results can be directly com- 6,073 305 50 3,711
pared with the performance of more complex procedures. An au- 6,074 102 55 315
tomated procedure increases the efficiency of the search, whereas 6,075 203 50 1,501
engineering judgment applied through this approach obtained com- 6,079 711 60 10,685
6,080 203 50 1,501
parable solutions for the objectives proposed in the BWNDMA. 6,089 102 55 315
Ongoing research is exploring the application of multistage proce- 6,101 203 55 1,501
dures that integrate optimization algorithms to automate the design 6,103 203 48 1,501
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Zhejiang University on 11/11/22. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

of DMAs for large water networks. 4,954 203 40 1,501

The set of objective functions and constraints and the large 6,076 203 50 1,501
water network presented by the BWNDMA created a challenging 6,078 102 30 315
problem for the research community. To identify feasible solutions, 6,106 406 59 7,400
the approach presented here made several assumptions that engi- 4,944 102 40 315
6,108 152 50 695
neering practitioners may need to avoid for realistic problems.
6,109 102 59 315
The main assumption of this approach was that the identified boun- 6,110 102 40 315
dary pipes had already installed a gate valve, and closing them 6,111 102 40 315
would not represent an extra cost to the utility. In this work, we 6,117 203 50 1,501
focused on the demand similarity to design DMAs and create 6,142 203 49.5 1,501
similar-sized districts. Although having same-size districts is desir- 4,945 152 59 695
able, this objective conflicts with other performance objectives and 4,981 102 59 315
is difficult to achieve (Rahman and Wu 2018; Pesantez et al. 2019). 6,077 152 71 695
2 356 60 4,470
The solution presented in this research specified that PRVs should
4,268 254 45 2,240
be installed at the entrances of several small areas to meet pressure 6,082 203 59 1,501
constraints. The cost of new PRVs could be reduced or avoided if 6,083 102 50 315
the utility required home owners to install in-house PRVs. The 6,084 152 50 695
specification of the original pipe network created problems with 6,085 102 40 315
simulation times, and we disconnected tanks to reduce computa- 6,087 152 16 695
tion. These changes may limit the performance of the procedure 6,088 152 30 695
presented here and the solution that was identified. The perfor- 6,090 102 55 315
6,094 102 50 315
mance of the model was evaluated exclusively using the objective
6,099 203 57 1,501
functions and the constraints posed by the BWNDMA. The ap- 6,102 102 55 315
proached developed in this work did not address other performance 6,104 152 55 695
indices that represent, for example, reliability, average wet and dry 6,105 102 55 315
weather flows, and the available fire flow associated with the DMA 6,112 102 59 315
configuration. Future work can explore algorithms that use these 6,116 102 20 315
metrics in designing DMA configurations. 6,118 102 20 315
6,133 152 20 695
6,139 203 65 1,501
6,138 406 57 7,400
Appendix. Hydraulic adjustments and operational
changes
Table 5. Changes in PRV settings for the dry season
Table 4 shows the list of valves adjustments for the network.
Table 5 shows the required operational settings of the PRVs Valve ID Valve diameter (mm) Valve setting (m)
between seasons for E-Town. 6,118 102 20
6,116 102 20
6,090 102 55
6,094 102 50
Table 4. Valve interventions for E-Town 6,102 102 55
4,454 102 50
Valve diameter Valve setting Valve cost
6,112 102 59
Valve ID (mm) (m) ($)
6,105 102 55
4,453 102 30 315 4,453 102 30
4,454 102 50 315 6,099 203 57
4,455 203 30 1,501 6,104 152 55
4,940 457 30 7,733 4,455 203 40
4,943 254 55 2,240 6,133 152 20
1,253 254 45 2,240 4,046 406 57
4,947 254 55 2,240 6,088 152 30

© ASCE 06020010-7 J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage.

J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage., 2020, 146(7): 06020010

 Table 6. Changes in isolation valves between seasons Di Nardo, A., M. Di Natale, G. F. Santonastaso, V. G. Tzatchkov, and V. H.
Alcocer-Yamanaka. 2014. “Water network sectorization based on graph
Pipe ID Rainy season status Dry season status
theory and energy performance indices.” J. Water Resour. Plann. Man-
6,074 None Open age. 140 (5): 620–629. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)WR.1943-5452
Tank_15_FCV Open None .0000364.
8,344 Open Closed Di Nardo, A., M. Di Natale, G. F. Santonastaso, and S. Venticinque. 2013.
5,879 Closed Open “An automated tool for smart water network partitioning.” Water
8,631 Closed Open Resour. Manage. 27 (13): 4493–4508. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269
104 Closed Open -013-0421-1.
8,498 Closed Open Eliades, D. G., M. Kyriakou, S. Vrachimis, and M. M. Polycarpou. 2016.
3,822 Closed Open “EPANET-MATLAB toolkit: An open-source software for interfacing
11,639 Closed Open EPANET with MATLAB.” In Proc., 14th Int. Conf. on Computing and
1,264 Open Closed Control for the Water Industry. Exeter, UK: CCWI.
6,153 Closed Open Ferrari, G., D. Savic, and G. Becciu. 2014. “Graph-theoretic approach and
13,679 Closed Open sound engineering principles for design of district metered areas.”
11,654 Open Closed
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Zhejiang University on 11/11/22. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage. 140 (12): 4014036. https://doi.org/10

10,424 Closed Open
7,442 Closed Open
Table 6 shows the operational changes of the valves between sea-
sons for E-Town.
Data Availability Statement
The edited E-Town input files for the rainy and the dry seasons and
the code are available by request to the corresponding author.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported in part by the Government of Ecuador
through the Secretaría Nacional de Educación Superior, Ciencia,
Tecnología e Innovación (SENESCYT).
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