IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/risrel/v222y2008i4p655-665.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Single-objective deterministic versus multi-objective stochastic water network design: Practical considerations for the water industry

Author

Listed:
  • Y R Filion

Abstract

The strategy in single-objective deterministic water network design is to size and locate components to minimize capital cost and meet future peak demands at or above a minimum pressure. Increasingly, practitioners are turning to multi-objective stochastic design to balance the minimum-cost objective with hydraulic performance objectives. The aim of the current paper is to review single-objective deterministic and multi-objective stochastic network design and discuss practical considerations concerning their advantages and disadvantages of relevance to water industry professionals and practitioners. Key differences in data and computational requirements, comprehensiveness of analysis, and decision flexibility between the two approaches are illustrated with a complex, hypothetical network example. A Monte-Carlo simulation program was used to solve the multi-objective stochastic problem and generate a set of Pareto or near-Pareto solutions with pipe cost ranging between $9.3 and $17.4 million and hydraulic robustness ranging between 65.8 and 96.4 per cent. Results indicated a non-linear relationship between pipe cost and robustness typical of many systems and that a large premium must be paid to achieve marginal improvements in robustness beyond a value of 90 per cent. The MCS program was run for 30.6 h to test the hypothetical network against a broad range of demands to ensure a high level of hydraulic robustness. The Pareto curve allows the decision maker the opportunity to quickly assess trade-offs between pipe cost and robustness.

Suggested Citation

  • Y R Filion, 2008. "Single-objective deterministic versus multi-objective stochastic water network design: Practical considerations for the water industry," Journal of Risk and Reliability, , vol. 222(4), pages 655-665, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:risrel:v:222:y:2008:i:4:p:655-665
    DOI: 10.1243/1748006XJRR160
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1243/1748006XJRR160
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1243/1748006XJRR160?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:risrel:v:222:y:2008:i:4:p:655-665. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.