Numerical modeling of early bio-contamination in a water distribution system and comparison with laboratory experiments

This paper aims to develop and demonstrate the technical feasibility of prototype system for early bio-contamination detection that will efficiently enable water operators to ensure real-time water quality control management, as well as a preemptive risk management and consumers' warning. The deployment of state-of-the-art and mono/multi-parameter systems for sensors' health monitoring provide the operators with innovative reliable capabilities to ensure early microbial contamination detection, efficiently filter false alarms, undertake preemptive incident mitigation measures and monitor their impacts. Due to lack of labeled water bio-contamination data, numerical models (EPANET-MSX) have been used for bio-contamination scenario simulations of Escherichia coli (E. coli) injections into a water distribution network modeled with EPANET. The monitored effect on water quality parameters, as free chlorine and total chlorine, are compared with laboratory results obtained at the University of Lille. The outcome has demonstrated the feasibility of using the on-line monitoring of water quality parameters for real time bio-contamination detection and mitigation impacts monitoring.