On the Relation Between Leakage Location and Network Pressures

Water scarcity is an increasing problem worldwide. Therefore, detecting and isolating the location of leakages rapidly is very important not only to save water but also to avoid destruction of roads and houses. In this paper, an analytic relation between a network leak and nodal pressures in water distribution networks is established. The results provide a theoretical foundation for using distributed pressure measurements for leakage localization, and thereby supports similar results obtained using numerical analysis. The analytic results are backed up by tests on a scaled water distribution network placed in AAU Water Supply Lab at Aalborg University.