Simulation-Based Analysis of a Real Water Distribution Network to Support Emergency Management

Water distribution systems have a safety-critical role and are vulnerable to a range of intentional threats. Committing to emergency preparedness, critical and missing metrics are the residual water storage in tanks and the estimated operative autonomy (in hours). This article presents a high-fidelity simulator developed to calculate the mentioned metrics and to evaluate the impact of adverse events, such as faults and/or cyber-attacks on a real water distribution system. This simulator utilizes a refined model of the network for accurate results; a commercial simulator to trustworthily solve the hydraulic equations; and an ad-hoc module to follow the evolution in time of the event. A large real water distribution network has been modeled thanks to real data provided by an operator and used as a case study. A comprehensive impact analysis of the single failure has been carried out. Results show that the simulator has been able to elicit unforeseen use cases and correctly quantify the required metrics. This article has been implemented in the framework of the European project ATENA.