Towards resilient water networks by using resilience key performance indicators

The main objective of a water distribution network (WDN) is to deliver the required amount of water to the customer under a certain threshold of the desired pressure and quality. These networks are critical infrastructures that should face multiple and continuous changes and even abnormal events that alter their normal service provision. Water utility managers require modelling tools to be able to predict how the WDN will perform during disruptive events and understand how the system can better absorb them. Assessing and enhancing resilience in water infrastructures is a crucial step towards more sustainable urban water management. Several resilience key performance indicators (RKPIs) have been suggested to quantify and assessing WDNs resilience. This work proposes a structured classification for measuring and understanding the supply system by means of RKPIs. The proposed classification is based on a three-stage resilience concept which includes absorptive, adaptive, and restorative stages. This classification attempts to provide engineers, modellers, and managers with structured tools which allow a comprehensive analysis of crisis management case studies in order to enhance the WDN resilience. As the resources in supply are usually limited, recovery phases have a crucial role in resilience enhancing, while under sufficient availability of resources, deploying redundancy, making critical components stronger and ensuring a rapid recovery are all effective responses of the system.