Author(s): Francesco Viola; Elena Cristiano; Roberto Deidda

Linked Author(s):

Keywords: Domestic water use; Smart meter data; Water consumption pattern

Abstract: One of the main challenges for the city development is to ensure a sustainable water resource management for the water supply system. A clear identification of the urban water consumption patterns supports policy and decision makers in managing the water resources, satisfying the total demand and, at the same time, reducing losses and identifying potential leakages or other issues in the distribution network. High resolution smart meters have widely shown to be an efficient tool to measure in pipe water consumption. The collected data can be used to identify water demand patterns at different temporal and spatial scales, reaching the end-uses level. Water demand patterns at building level can be influenced by multiple factors, such as socio-demographic aspects, seasonality and house characteristics. The presence of a garden that requires summer irrigation strongly alters the daily average pattern. In this framework, we present an innovative approach to automatically detect the presence of garden irrigation, identifying daily average water consumption patterns with and without it. The proposed methodology has been applied in a residential area in Northen Italy, where 23 smart meters have recorded data at 1 min resolution for two years. Results show that the proposed approach can easily distinguish between days with and without garden irrigation and provides an average normalized water demand pattern for both situations, which can help decision makers and water managers to correctly regulate the pressure regimes in the distribution network.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3850/iahr-hic2483430201-526

Year: 2024