Water distribution system calibration: Manual versus optimization-based approach

The water distribution system hydraulic model for an Ontario, Canada town has been calibrated by engineers familiar with the system. Their calibration procedure was mainly an expert-based approach using judgment and trial-and-error and did not rely on optimization. The purpose of this study is to resolve the corresponding calibration problem with optimization tools and compare the calibration solutions in terms of quality (closeness to measured data) and calibration parameter values. The calibration problem is posed as a multi-objective optimization problem and solved with the PA-DDS algorithm described in [1]. The precise calibration objectives are roughly matched to the manual calibration objectives specified by the engineers who calibrated the model. Multi-objective optimization results are compared with the current solution to determine if the current solution is non-dominated.