Multi-Criteria Response Planning for Water Utility Contamination Events

Water utility contamination response planning is a difficult task due to several factors: sparseness and uncertainty of information about the problem, uncertainty about the effects of specific response actions, and the multiple objectives that managers must consider, among others. This ongoing project is developing new methods of response planning that address these difficulties. Previous work on water distribution system (WDS) vulnerability assessment is used here to understand the stochastic nature of contamination events and their manifestations. This understanding allows development of "trigger event" profiles including consumer complaints, public health evaluations, and sensed anomalies. These profiles can be used to delimit potential contamination scenarios and probabilities of these scenarios as information is gathered. Specific response actions can then be evaluated and optimized to build systematic plans. An evolutionary computation based framework is used to find operational response plans that meet multiple criteria of utility mangers. Applicability and performance of the response planning method is evaluated using the Mesopolis "virtual city." 2011 ASCE.

Multi-Criteria Response Planning for Water Utility Contamination Events Conference Paper