Drinking Water Supply Network: Modernized Solution

Study Area: Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

In our Islands, a proper Water Distribution Network becomes essential to distribute water to a number of houses, industries and public places. But it is very difficult to precisely assess the quantity of water demanded by the public. Since there are various factors affecting water consumption. Demand estimation at nodes of water Distribution Network can be made fairly simple if the command area to each line and corresponding variation in land use we as future population growths are disregarded and adopting gross estimates for the whole Islands.

 In our Islands, a large percentage of the water is lost in transit from treatment plants to consumers (houses and other users). Water loss can be attributed to several causes, including leakage, pipe flushing, and theft. Leakage is usually the major cause. Leakage occurs in different components of the distribution system: transmission pipes, distribution pipes, service connection pipes, joints, valves. Causes of leaks include corrosion, material defects, faulty installation, excessive water pressure, water hammer, ground movement due to drought or freezing, and excessive loads and vibration from road traffic. Leaks waste both money and a precious natural resource, and they create a public health risk. The primary economic loss is the cost of raw water, its treatment, and its transportation. Leakage leads to additional economic loss in the form of damage to the pipe network itself, e.g., erosion of pipe bedding and pipe breaks, and to the foundations of roads and buildings. Economic constraints, concern over public health risk and the need to conserve water.

If our department will have changed to modernized Water Distribution Network then the potential benefits are:

DEMAND AND SUPPLY:

The demand for water increases each year with changing climatic conditions and with the growth in population. The demand and supply facts generated by the system can help in forecasting the future requirement of water.

DEMAND FOR FRESH WATER:

Demand for fresh water can be calculated according to population size. Hence department can make a decision for the installation of new water sources on appropriate time.

CONSUMER COMPLAINT:

Consumer complaint report generation enables the department to keep track of the complaint status. Yearly complaint graph generation helps department to identify the most problematic areas.

 ALTERNATIVE FLOW PATH:

 Department can find alternative flow path in case of breakage in supply channel - The water works department can find the alternate water low path in case a breakage is found somewhere else in the existing low path. The user can place a hypothetical problem point between source and destination point to get alternate path.

AUTOMATIC ALERT MECHANISM:

Automatic alert mechanism for those assets which needs replacement and identify their exact location below the surface of earth along with related information.

STATUS REPORT:

Solution generates the overall status report of the target area

VISUALIZATION ON DESKTOP:

The system visualizes pre field visit preview that worth supporting decisions and actions to be taken in the field

DISEASE REGISTRATION:

Disease registration by the public health centers of the community are recorded in the central database. This information is very useful for identifying those locations of the community for which a particular disease inquiry is required. By analyzing the generated pattern we can reach to the root cause of the disease related to drinking water.

A major advantage of the modernized solution to the department is that the user can see the information related to physical components of the system, below or above the earth surface, ranging from a small size socket up to a large size reservoir. User can see information just by selecting any component instance over the map such as socket, pipe segment, tube-well, parcel, road, reservoir, etc.

The solution helps in abstracting knowledge from the facts and figures available on the ground. For example, most of drinking water related disease appears due to contamination in water through leakage of pipes. Departments can get any disease records from the community health care centers through public interface developed in support of this solution. Upon user query for disease between two dates, the locations of patients carrying a particular disease will be displayed on map. If the patients’ location are found closed enough that they are served by the same supply channel, and then this makes the department convenient to inspect that channel for leakage.

Graphs and reports make decision making easy in any kind of organization. The system visualizes various graphs and reports upon ground facts provided. Such as, graph representing the demand Vs supply ratio for the whole area and the graph representing the number of complaints received by the department each month in a year. The system generates report even for a single registered consumer.

We will have updated our self to current world’s technology.  Hope….