Assessing and Optimizing Online Monitoring for Securing the Water Distribution System

Municipal water supply and distribution system is large complex network system to deliver water to end customers. The water distribution system includes networks of pumps, pipes and storage tanks, which provide high-quality water to the customers. The complex water distribution network and broad space coverage are vulnerable to face with a range of threat including natural hazard and human-caused threat, such as biochemical contamination. Therefore securing water supply and distribution system are a challenging problem. This paper proposes an effective approach of optimizing the allocated online monitoring points to enhance water distribution system security against the contaminant threat due to the emergency situation. The approach has been applied and evaluated in the real water distribution network in China.