Determination of the economic leakage level with optimizationalgorithms in water loss management

Leaks and failures occurring in water distribution systems cause significant technical, social, economic and operational difficulties for utilities. Various methods are applied to manage and prevent these leaks and failures. However, besides the benefits obtained from these methods, costs arise within the scope of equipment, data acquisition, field applications and monitoring systems. For this reason, the costs that will arise when determining the method in water loss management should be determined and benefit/cost analysis should be done. The aim of this study is to make benefit/cost analyzes for the basic reduction methods applied in water loss management and to determine the level of economic leakage for the system by evaluating the common variables together. For this purpose, the benefit/cost analysis standard and cost components were determined on the basis of field data for basic methods such as active leakage control, district metered area design and implementation, team management for leak detection, network rehabilitation and meter management. In addition, an optimization-based model has been developed to define the economic leakage level, to determine the most appropriate pressure level and the number of teams to reach this level, taking into account the system and water loss components, the requirements, constraints and cost components of prevention methods. Moreover, the methods to be applied in order to reach the determined economic leakage level have been determined. In the study, infrastructure leakage index (ILI) was taken into account in the economic analysis of pressure management and acoustic listening methods and the effectiveness of this indicator in monitoring system performance was analyzed. Finally, considering the budget situation in the administration, the level of economic leakage was determined in limited budget conditions and the methods to be applied to achieve this target were defined. Data and information belonging to the isolated areas within the service area of MASKI General Directorate and KASKI General Directorate were used in the realization of the above objectives. It is thought that the results obtained from this study will provide significant gains in terms of making water loss management in a more planned manner, determining the most appropriate prevention method and using resources (technique infrastructure, personnel, economic) more efficiently.