Identification of contamination source in water distribution network based on consumer complaints

Abstract

A new methodology was proposed for contamination source identification using information provided by consumer complaints from a probabilistic view. Due to the high uncertainties of information derived from users, the objective of the proposed methodology doesn’t aim to capture a unique solution, but to minimize the number of possible contamination sources. In the proposed methodology, all the possible pollution nodes are identified through the CSA methodology firstly. And then based on the principle of total probability formula, the probability of each possible contamination node is obtained through a series of calculation. According to magnitude of the probability, the number of possible pollution nodes is minimized. The effectiveness and feasibility of the methodology is demonstrated through an application to a real case of ZJ City. Four scenarios were designed to investigate the influence of different uncertainties on the results in this case. The results show that pollutant concentration, injection duration, the number of consumer complaints nodes used for calculation and the prior probability with which consumers would complaint have no particular effect on the identification of contamination source. Three nodes were selected as the most possible pollution sources in water pipe network of ZJ City which includes more than 3 000 nodes. The results show the potential of the proposed method to identify contamination source through consumer complaints.