Predicting Water Quality for the Woronora Delivery Network with Sparse Samples Monitoring drinking water quality in the entire delivery network, mainly indicated by total chlorine (TC), is a critical component of overall water supply management. However, it is extremely difficult to collect sufficient TC data from the network at customer sites, which makes it sparse for comprehensive modelling. This paper details an approach that provides TC prediction within the entire Woronora delivery network in Sydney in the next 24 hours. First, the hydraulic system is employed to capture the topology of the delivery network, so that the water travel time can be estimated using predicted water demand. The travel time links the upstream (reservoir) data to the downstream (resident) data. Then, a twostep strategy is proposed as a semiparametric method to determine the crucial factors and build Bayesian model for TC decay to predict TC with the travel time. Lastly, the uncertainties of both data and the model are analysed to define the boundaries of prediction for better decision making. Several operational stages are involved when the approach is being deployed, including prediction interpretation, interactive tool development for water quality mapping and visualisation, and proactive optimisation. This has established a successful initiative to improve the overall water supply management for the entire Woronora delivery network.

Smart meters data for modeling and forecasting water demand at the userlevel Abstract   Smart meters installed at the userlevel provide a new data source for managing water infrastructure. This research explores the use of machine learning methods, including Random Forests (RFs), Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), and Support Vector Regression (SVR) to forecast hourly water demand at 90 accounts using smartmetered data. Demands are predicted using lagged demand, seasonality, weather, and household characteristics. Timeseries clustering is applied to delineate data based on the time of day and days of the week, which improves model performance. Two modeling approaches are compared. Individual models are developed separately for each meter, and a Group model is trained using a data set of multiple meters. Individual models predict demands at meters in the original data set with lower error than Group models, while the Group model predicts demands at new meters with lower error than Individual models. Results demonstrate that RF and ANN perform better than SVR across all scenarios.