An advanced software to design automatically permanent partitioning of a water distribution network

Permanent partitioning represents one of the more effective approaches for an innovative management of water distribution networks (WDNs) because it allows simplification of the network control defining small subsystem defined as a district meter area (DMA) in which it is simpler to compute water balance, to achieve pressure management and to check water quality. The design of permanent water network partitioning (WNP) is very difficult to apply to large water networks using traditional approaches based on empirical considerations and trial and errors techniques. Recently, the authors developed the software SWANP that allows definition automatically of the number and dimension and shape of a DMA using different innovative heuristic optimization procedures. In this paper a novel release 3.5 of SWANP is presented that implements novel algorithms, based on social network theory for the clustering phase and a genetic multiobjective for the dividing phase, to automatically design DMAs of a real, large water network in Alcalá de Henares, Spain.