Modeling contaminant intrusion in water distribution networks: A new similarity-based DST method

Contaminant intrusion in a water distribution network is a complex but a commonly observed phenomenon, which depends on three elements – a pathway, a driving force and a contamination source. However, the data on these elements are generally incomplete, non-specific and uncertain. In an earlier work, Sadiq, Kleiner, and Rajani (2006) have successfully applied traditional Dempster–Shafer theory (DST) to estimate the “risk” of contaminant intrusion in a water distribution network based on limited uncertain information. However, the method used for generating basic probability assignment (BPA) was not very flexible, and did not handle and process uncertain information effectively. In this paper, a more pragmatic method is proposed that utilizes “soft” computing flexibility to generate BPAs from uncertain information. This paper compares these two methods through numerical examples, and demonstrates the efficiency and effectiveness of modified method.