A bottom-up approach of stochastic demand allocation in water quality modelling

An "all pipes" hydraulic model of a DMA-sized drinking water distribution system was constructed with two types of demand allocations. One is constructed with the conventional top-down approach, i.e. a demand multiplier pattern from the booster station is allocated to all demand nodes with a correction factor to account for the average water demand on that node. The other is constructed with a bottom-up approach of demand allocation, i.e., each individual home is represented by one demand node with its own stochastic water demand pattern. The stochastic water demand patterns are constructed with an end-use model on a per second basis and per individual home. The flow entering the test area was measured and a tracer test with sodium chloride was performed to measure travel times. The two models were evaluated on the predicted sum of demands and travel times, compared with what was measured in the test area. The new bottom-up approach performs at least as well as the conventional top-down approach with respect to total demand and travel times, without the need for any flow measurements or calibration measurements. The bottom-up approach leads to a stochastic method of hydraulic modelling and gives insight into the variability of travel times as an added feature beyond the conventional way of modelling.