In this research, reliability indicators of water distribution networks are evaluated under pipe failure conditions. The case studies include two benchmark and one real-life water distribution networks in Iran with more hydraulic constraints. Some important reliability indicators are presented, such as resilience index, network resilience, modified resilience index, and minimum surplus head index.

Sectorizing a network into district metered areas is a key technique for water loss reduction. Sectorization is a well-studied problem. Optimization techniques can be used to find solutions to such problems, but doing so within a reasonable time remains a challenge. We introduce two heuristic tricks to modify a basic evolutionary algorithm that solves this problem. The tricks reduce the time needed to find good solutions but also lead to solutions that better match drinking water practice.

This paper presents a simple methodology for assessing the supplying capacity of demand nodes under pressure-deficient conditions by assigning the respective emitter coefficient only to those nodes facing the pressure-deficit condition. Though the proposed approach follows an iterative methodology using EPANET software, the computational burden of adding artificial elements to the other methods is avoided and is hence useful for analyzing large networks.

This paper concerns the extension and tuning of a genetic algorithm used for the automated design of optimal drinking water distribution networks. Different settings and extensions are tested for their effect on the speed and reproducibility with which the algorithm can produce good results. The fastest combinations are reported. Speed and reproducibility are key conditions for drinking water utilities to include the use of optimization algorithms in the regular design process of mains.

The cost optimization of piped water networks consists of choosing pipe diameters. Networks also consist of tanks that act as buffers between the source and demand nodes. Typically the tank configuration is done in an ad hoc fashion. It is therefore desirable to also include this tank configuration choice in the cost optimization. We explain why the choice of tank configuration is important in network design and describe a system called JalTantra that aids the designers of piped water networks.