Estimating Water Losses and Assessing Network Management Intervention Scenarios: The Case Study of the Water Utility of the City of Drama in Greece

The growing need and interest for sustainability and preservation of our natural resources has long before been theoretically adapted and nourished in the minds and thoughts of Greek water professionals and Authorities executive associates. However, the long term planning and sustainable water management that aims at ongoing, constantly adaptable methodologies and strategies have not yet found a commonly practical application and have rather remained a discussion for almost every Water Utility in Greece. In 2013, the Utility of the city of Drama in northern Greece took the first step nationally towards the direction of implementing worldwide applied methodologies and IWA concepts. They realized that investing on a project that would ultimately provide them with the necessary equipment and the required know-how to assess their network's losses and the possible improvement interventions and strategies instead of just moving forward with changes without having previously estimated their results, makes more sense in the long term, capturing thus the essence of sustainability. The procedures, results and conclusions deriving from this project implementation will be presented within this paper.