Estimating Area Leakage in Water Networks Based on Hydraulic Model and Asset Information

This paper proposes a method of estimating area leakages in virtual areas of a water network to prioritize leak surveys for the areas. It estimates the leakage within the areas by minimizing the difference between the measured and the hydraulic-model-estimated pressure and flow rates. Leakage is distributed around junctions with risk models based on asset information around junctions such as pipe length. The accuracy was evaluated by a simulation study, where the impact of head measurement error was considered by a Monte-Carlo-type method. The mean absolute error of area leakage was less than 2 percent of the system flow.