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Improving Leakage Detection in Urban Water Distribution System: A Pilot Site for Smart Monitoring and Data Analysis in Casablanca City, Morocco

Author(s): Dalila Loudyi; Saad Azzaoui; Faycal Taghlabi

Linked Author(s): Dalila Loudyi, Saad Azzaoui

Keywords: Leakage detection; Smart water distribution network; Acoustic sensors

Abstract: Water scarcity and sustainability considerations has brought many countries to seek methods for reducing losses in their water supply and distribution systems. In cities, most of the water utilities are indeed addressing the performance of water distribution systems by implementing technologies for leakage detection and reparation. In Casablanca city, Morocco, most of water losses are due to aging pipelines and pressure disturbances. In 2020, the city water distribution system has reached an average yield of 77%, over a 4000 km length of pipes, saving 10 millions m3 of fresh water. However, the increasing urban water demand and limitation of water availability have urged the water utility to fix an objective of 85% for the city water distribution system yield in the best delays. In order to reach this target, the water utility has installed 2000 operational devices of fixed leakage pre-locators. The objective is to continuously monitor the 629 km linear of degraded gray cast iron pipes and to reduce the flow times of leaks in the event of degradation. In this work a new technology for leakage detection of water distribution system will be presented and tested on a pilot study in a high population density district of Casablanca. The technology goes beyond the effective detection of leaks in networks by providing continuous assessment of the condition of pipelines and data-based decision support to keep the network faultless. The project consists of installing 19 acoustic sensors as a fixed solution and a single mobile solution. Theses sensors achieve automatic noise correlation between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. with a possibility of hydrophone correlation, communicating via 5G/4G GSM cellular networks with 8 years of battery operation. The system is powered by state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence algorithms and integrates Big Data analytics. The data are gathered and treated by AQUADVANCED expert control system that allows to have a global view of the water system and ensures integrated management based on: 1) the recovery and geographic visualization of data from the various sensors from the network (flowmeters, pre-locators of leaks, pressure sensors, remote read meters) and 2) an automated analysis through indicators, histogram curves and warnings using different calculation models. The results of this smart water solution combining the installation of new acoustic sensors in the test pilot site with the expert control system will be compared with the previous water detection system in the same area to demonstrate its efficiency in improving water distribution system performances.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3850/IAHR-39WC252171192022993

Year: 2022

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