A Stochastic Programming Approach for the Strategic Valve Locations Problem in a Water Distribution System

Water distribution networks are important systems that provide citizens with an essential public service which is crucial for the normal development of most basic activities of life. We address a challenging problem in the design of the isolation system for water distribution networks concerning the optimal location of valves in a water network.The aim of an isolation valve system is to separate a portion of the water distribution network for maintenance, pipe breaks or protection against contaminants. Despite many water distribution network problems have been extensively investigated in the literature, the presence of uncertainty in the data has often been neglected.We address this shortcoming presenting a stochastic programming approach for the strategic valve locations problem in water distribution networks by considering different failure scenarios. Numerical results on case studies taken from the literature are presented.