Fuzzy logic-based integrated performance evaluation of a water distribution network

A water distribution network (WDN) is an essential component of an urban water supply scheme to deliver safe and adequate water to consumers under various operational conditions. This study focuses on the performance evaluation of an urban WDN using fuzzy logic-based aggregation of reliability, resilience, and vulnerability indices. To assess the individual performance indicators, this study advocates the pressure-dependent analysis (PDA) for the hydraulic simulation. Furthermore, it advocates a fuzzy rule-based aggregated performance index (API) that will deliver the outcome in linguistic form and help the decision-maker to prioritize the maintenance of the WDN. The proposed method is illustrated with the help of a real-time WDN for part of Dire Dawa city in Ethiopia. It has been found that the API values for this network are 0.721 and 0.624, respectively, under normal and abnormal conditions, which are just satisfactory. It has been noticed that nodes J4, J44, J47, and J49 are critical from the overall low API. Efforts should be made to improve the hydraulic and residual chlorine conditions at these nodes to increase the API. It is felt that such a methodology will help the decision-makers in improving the performance of an existing urban WDN.