Water Distribution Network Resilience Management Using Global Resilience Analysis-Based Index

Resilient water distribution system is crucial for sustainable urban water management. Evaluating the inherent resilience of the buried water infrastructure is key to ensuring reliable water distribution. The water distribution network maintains water quality and supplies sufficient water to users. Evaluating the system’s resilience under varying failure conditions is crucial to guarantee continued service delivery. This study investigates the resilience of the water distribution network for the University City, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates subjected to failure conditions caused by pipe failure, water contamination, and water excess demand. This research quantifies the corresponding performance under these stressors and develops an innovative resilience index by using the global resilience analysis (GRA) approach. The corresponding strain is in the form of node failure, chlorine decay, and pressure failures among all the pipes throughout the network. A survey was conducted with the water company to identify recovery time for the designated water distribution network. Another survey was conducted among the experts to evaluate the relative significance of all the strains in contribution towards resilience. Based on the resilience index, four levels (high, moderate, low, and very low) of resilience were defined. The study revealed Sharjah water distribution network has up to 40% of its stress categorized as low resilience and 60% of its stress categorized as very low resilience. The study also presented a management plan for the improvement of the designated water distribution network.