BE Magazine - Volume 6, Issue 1 - (Page 16)

2009TRENDSWATCH Is Water the New Oil? ater. Is there anything more fundamental to sustaining life on this planet? Human survival, our livelihoods, and nearly all modes of economic production depend on it. And even though we inhabit a water planet, fresh water is not an abundant resource. According to the United Nations, there are about 1.2 billion people without adequate access to clean drinking water and 3 billion people who do not have access to adequate sanitation. In spite of its fundamental importance to human society, an astounding amount of clean water is lost from our water distribution systems. In today’s world, we cannot even imagine wasting 8.54 trillion gallons of oil. Yet according to the World Bank, 32 billion cubic meters—8.54 trillion gallons—of treated water, critical to sustaining human life on this planet, is lost from distribution systems annually due to leakage. A further 16 billion cubic meters is unaccounted for each year due to theft, poor metering, or corruption. Water loss also has an economic impact. It is estimated that water lost through distribution systems annually accounts for almost $14 billion in potential revenues—a staggering ﬁnancial loss. In the developing world, the amount of treated water lost can approach 60 percent of the water entering the distribution system. On a global basis, including the developed world, an estimated 26 percent of the treated water is lost. Recovering just half of the water lost in this way would serve the water needs of an additional 90 million people, with no further investment in new water systems or further tapping into increasingly scarce sources of water. W It may be stating the obvious, but plugging the leaks would seem to be the most direct approach to solving the leakage. However, as water distribution systems are largely underground, locating the leaks is extremely difﬁcult. Visual inspection requires excavating the piping. Even leak-detection technologies that don’t require digging—such as acoustic methods and step-wise testing—are expensive, timeconsuming, and not 100 percent effective. hydraulic characteristics, but applying model-based methods to leak detection was new territory. Leakage can be modeled as a special instance of emitter ﬂow, per the formula Qi = Ki Pi a, where Qi is the leakage aggregated at node i, Pi is the nodal pressure at node i, a is the exponent (usually 0.5 for leaks), and Ki is the emitter coefﬁcient. If the emitter coefﬁcient, Ki, can be optimized usefully, then in theory it can be a Human survival, our livelihoods, and nearly all modes of economic production depend on water. And even though we inhabit a water planet, fresh water is not an abundant resource. Clearly, meeting the impending water crisis with limited budgets and limited resources requires innovation. As the United Kingdom’s largest operator of water and wastewater networks, United Utilities Water has an added incentive to ﬁnd and repair leaks. U.K. water leakage is measured and targets are set, and failure to meet goals results in severe ﬁnancial penalties. So like other water utilities worldwide, United Utilities is serious about new methods of leak detection, but unlike others, it has entered into an interesting partnership to create these new methods. United Utilities teamed up with Bentley’s Haestad Methods Solution Center in an applied research project that investigated the use of water system modeling in leak detection. The use of such models has become routine for analysis of a system’s good way to detect leaks in a system. But leakage tends to concentrate in relatively few hotspots, and in practice, optimizing hundreds or thousands of nodal emitter coefﬁcients in order to detect the handful of spots with signiﬁcant leakage has proven to be a signiﬁcant computational challenge. United Utilities and Bentley engineers got around this by matching simulated ﬂows and pressures with ﬁeld-observed values and applying a genetic algorithm— a search and optimization method based on the principles of natural evolution and genetic reproduction—to the problem. Initial results were promising, so Bentley engineers developed the algorithm into a user-friendly software tool. They then arranged for a real-world benchmark test and evaluation of the new method to be 16 Be Magazine | Volume 6 Issue 1 http://www.bentley.com/en-US/Solutions/Water and Wastewater/Water Loss.htm

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of BE Magazine - Volume 6, Issue 1

BE Magazine - Volume 6, Issue 1 Contents Anticipation’s Name Is V8i Be Awards of Excellence Kicks Off Competition Bentley Launches the Most Comprehensive SoftwarePortfolio for Infrastructure Ever Assembled in a Single Release MicroStation V8i Up Close & Personal Is Water the New Oil? How Does Intent Become Reality? Does Performance Create Sustainability? Renewing Confidence in Public Highway Infrastructure Enterprisewide System Manages International Airport Standardized CAD/GIS Platform Streamlines Infrastructure Engineering 3D Modeling Refines Reusable Design for Plant Prototype Lean Teams Deliver Automotive Assembly Plants Through Innovative Use of BIM Integrated 3DModels Enable Compact and Safe Plant Design Sustainable Development Supports Thriving Community Terminal Pumps Natural Gas Through Longest Subsea Pipeline Large UtilityWorks To Reduce SO2 Emissions Aging Power Station Boosts Engineering Productivity Hydropower Dam To Fuel Growing Economy Collaboration Tools Accelerate Chinese Railway Electrification System Design Rapid Rail Link To Meet Socio-Economic Development Goals High-CapacityWastewater Treatment Facility ReclaimsWater Resources City ExpandsWater SupplyWithout Deploying AdditionalWater Resources Private Calling Meets Public Service Learning Paths Map Skill Development for Infrastructure Professionals A Contemporary Approach to Site Design The Art of Visualization Special Feature: Be Communities Physical + Digital Investments = Intelligent Infrastructure

BE Magazine - Volume 6, Issue 1

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