SELECTION OF REHABILITATION ALTERNATIVES OF WATER DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS IN CONDITION OF LACK OF DATA BY CONCISE PERFORMANCE INDICES AND OPTIMIZATION TOOLS

The efficient management of a water distribution network should be based on the monitoring of network conditions and operation hydraulic parameters, as well as on records of maintenance and rehabilitation works done over the years, but unfortunately utilities often do not have such a detailed and up-to-date knowledge of managed systems. The decision-making process on investments to undertake cannot however leave aside a minimal level of knowledge which must be acquired in any case, the main problem being the availability of economic resources and time. Thence the need of investments planning tools which may cope with data scarcity, possibly leading to robust solutions. The paper shows a viable approach to networks rehabilitation in condition of lack of data, resorting to head-driven hydraulic simulations and multi-objective optimization, aimed at determining the best intervention options on the base of concise meaningful performance indices.