A Procedure for the Design of District Metered Areas in Water Distribution Systems

A procedure for the districtualization of a water distribution system is presented. The procedure is based on the use of techniques derived from graph theory and is aimed at identifying a “near optimal solution” in terms of (a) allocating all the network nodes among an assigned number of DMAs and (b) determining which pipes should be closed to delimit such districts and which pipes should be left open and fitted with flow meters in order to maximize the resilience of the entire system after the creation of districts. The application of the proposed procedure to a real water distribution system proved its robustness and effectiveness. The results obtained show that the procedure makes it possible to identify very good solutions in terms of resilience and minimum pressures when reference to the peak water demand and fire-flow conditions is made.