Water Supply System Performance Improvement in the Town of Pirot Using Water Balance IWA Methodology and Numerical Simulations

Abstract

The methods for performance measuring and benchmarking proposed by IWA Water Loss Task Force has been adopted worldwide during the last two decades. This methodology and active water loss management is still poorly applied in Serbian water supply systems. This research presents application of hydraulic modelling to estimate water supply network performance in the town of Pirot in Eastern Serbia and evaluate potential effects of active leakage management for water saving using IWA best practice. In the hydraulic model, diurnal demand multipliers for total and registered consumption and leakage exponent are calibrated for the extended period simulation. Calibrated model is then used for hydraulic analysis to estimate system water loss reduction, improvement of the technical performance indicator values and financial savings for the system subdivided in seven pressure management zones. The system pressure control with ten pressure reduction valves was simulated, for two different scenarios: a) using pressure reducing valves with fixed outlet pressure and b) with pressure sustaining valves to maintain the minimum pressure in the zone reference node. Both the resulting water balance and system technical performance indicators are significantly improved in both simulated pressure management scenarios.

Keywords

• IWA best practice
• pressure management
• technical performance indicators
• water loss reduction
• water supply network