Monitoring of water distribution system effectiveness using fractal geometry

The paper discusses issues related to monitoring quality and pressure of water transmitted using water supply networks. Special attention was paid to methods of determining location of measuring points, which to a large extent influence effectiveness of the monitoring system. The purpose of the paper is to present authors’ own method of determining location of points of measuring quality and pressure of transmitted water. The basis for considerations was a real water supply network in a city of about 10.000 residents. The presented method is based on existence of self-similarity properties of the set of fractals formed by the geometrical structure of the water supply network. It is a rank-ordered method involving 3 basic stages - reduction of the number of potential measuring points, providing more details of a target location and checking usefulness of selected points for monitoring purposes. At the preparatory stage, existence of fractal properties of the examined network structure is required to be demonstrated as well as the construction of its numerical model. The ranking is based on two indicators referring by analogy to human circulatory system monitoring and elements of the risk theory. This theory was also used to evaluate usefulness of selected measuring points for monitoring purposes.