Estimated leakage from emitters
Available on
Use case
Reducing water loss is a priority for any water utility. The Estimated leakage plugin helps you understand how changes in pressure settings can impact leakage volumes across your network. By calibrating a network with emitter coefficients for each node and creating pressure management scenarios, operators can estimate reductions in leakage by identifying the most effective pressure settings.
This plugin is especially useful for evaluating pressure reduction strategies through PRVs and optimizing leakage reduction per zone.
Data requirements
Depending on the data you have available for your network, you will be able to test different scenarios and/or get better insights. Double-check below if your network meets the data requirements to estimate leakage with Qatium.
The more information you have available, the better!
Minimum data requirements
To use the Estimated leakage plugin you need:
- A hydraulic model with emitters
- Zones defined according to the our guidelines.
In case you don't have emitters in your model, make sure you add them by modelling it including:
- Zones inlets/outlets (minimum one zone with at least one inlet).
- Live data for all zone inlets/outlets (at least for a 24h period with a resolution of at least 1hr). Alternatively, you could upload an INP network model with calibrated demands (i.e. EPS model with calibrated demand patterns for demand nodes).
- A measurement (or estimation) of the legitimate water consumption within each zone at the time of minimum night flow (MNF). This consumption value will be used to calculate a consumption factor for estimating leakage at the time of MNF. The higher the accuracy of this value, the higher the accuracy of the estimated leakage will be.
Tools
To perform a leakage reduction scenario in Qatium you can use the following tools:
If the Pressure management or the Estimated leakage plugins are not available on your subscription, you can buy them from the Marketplace.
How to estimate leakage in Qatium
Step-by-step guide
- Open the Estimated leakage plugin: You'll see the current estimated leakage volumes per hour for the entire network and by zone.
- Use the Pressure management plugin to simulate pressure changes. You'll see the minimum pressure of the PRV delimited zones and if there's room to reduction.
- Select a PRV and reduce its pressure settings to see changes in flow in a specific zone.
Insights & results
Go back to the Estimated leakage plugin to see:
- Original leakage flow rate
- Leakage flow rate after changes
- Percentage of increase or reduction
If the scenario doesn't change the leakage flow rate, the panel will only show the original volume. Both values (original and new leakage flow rate) are available for the whole network and for each zone.
Click any zone in the plugin panel to highlight it on the map and open its popover. Use the locate icon to zoom into its area.
Zones are ordered by leakage per km of network to help prioritize actions to take next, and to compare leakage in zones with different sizes.