First practical applications of low-data, low-assumptions background leakage determination using mCFPD

A new approach to rank a group of District Metered Areas (DMAs) in terms of background and unreported leakage rate and to quantify background/unreported leakage levels for individual DMAs in this group has recently been proposed (Van Thienen, 2022). It is based on an assumption of similarity in demand behavior between different DMAs, and requires no other data than net inflow timeseries for the DMAs or supply areas under consideration, and no assumptions other than that of similarity of demand. As such, it provides a low-data-requirements method for the evaluation of background and unreported leakage that does not share underlying assumptions with the commonly used Minimum Night Flow method and may potentially present a supplement or alternative to it.

In this contribution, we present and explain the method, and discuss its application to datasets from Dutch drinking water utilities. We present and discuss the lower and upper bounds for background leakage and the ranking obtained for the study areas and their interpretation. Finally, we present an outlook for application and further development.

 

Van Thienen, P. (2022) Direct assessment of background leakage levels for individual district metered areas (DMAs) using correspondence of demand characteristics between DMAs. Water Supply 22 (7): 6370–6388. doi: https://doi.org/10.2166/ws.2022.251