Resilience enhancing expansion strategies for water distribution systems: A network theory approach

Planners and engineers attempting to improve the resilience of water distribution systems face numerous challenges regarding the allocation and placement of redundancy so as to reduce the likelihood and impact of asset failures and take into consideration the growing demand for clean water, now and into the future. Water distribution systems may be represented as networks of multiple nodes (e.g. reservoirs, storage tanks and hydraulic junctions) interconnected by physical links (e.g. pipes) where the connectivity patterns of this network affects its reliability, efficiency and robustness to failures. In this paper we employ the link-node representation of water infrastructures and exploit a wide range of advanced and emerging network theory metrics and measurements to study the building blocks of the systems and quantify properties such as redundancy and fault tolerance, in order to establish relationships between structural features and performance of water distribution systems. We study the water distribution network of a growing city from a developing country and explore network expansion strategies that are aimed to secure and promote structural invulnerability, subject to design and budget constraints.

► We model water distribution systems as networks of nodes connected by physical links. ► We examine the water distribution network of a growing African city. ► We compare the cost of expansion options which promote structural invulnerability. ► Local redundancy does not necessarily improve system level robustness.