The Impact of Intermittent Water Supply Policies on Urban Water Distribution Networks

The research work presented herein presents a mathematical model that simulates the behaviour of urban water distribution networks (UWDNs) during a period of intermittent water supply (IWS). It investigates the effects of this policy on the condition and failure rate of the pipeline system by studying the change in the rate of occurrence of failures, using survival analysis. The analysis, based on an eight-year dataset (2003-2010) from a local Water Board, takes into account information related with the breakage incidents as well as external factors and vulnerability assessment. The results show that during the time period of implementation of the IWS and right after that, there is a significant increase in the number of water-leak incidents and a deterioration of the network condition, which indicates that the impact of IWS affects negatively the vulnerability of UWDNs.