Leak Zone Localization in Water Distribution Networks using a Topology-based Differential Evolution Algorithm

Leakages in Water Distribution Networks cause significant economical losses as well as environmental damage. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel leak location approach. The proposed method consists in using a modified differential evolution (DE) algorithm to solve the leak location task as an inverse problem based on the network’s hydraulic model. The modified DE algorithm considers the topological characteristics of the network. Temporal reasoning of the results is integrated with the proposal to improve the leak location performance. The strategy was tested under different uncertainty conditions with the model of the Modena water distribution network showing a performance ranging from 94 to 98% leak location accuracy with reduced zone sizes compared to previous approaches based on data-driven classification tools.