Measurement Methods for Diagnosis and Rehabilitation of Existing Systems

Abstract

Existing water supply systems are under continuous demand to supply an adequate amount of water of a required quality (health and technical aspect) at the required pressure. These systems are in continuous need of improvment in their operational management in order to meet new regulations, reduce costs and increase levels of service. Modern technology provides the means for such improvements either by the introduction of high level of informatic support after rehabilitation of the existing, aged systems, or by introducing appropriate new technologies into the newly designed and built systems. The computerized operational management systems have to be based on a number of components such as measurement, telemetric transmission, data acquisition, relational data base systems, data processing and hydrodynamic and water quality modeling. It is of upmost importance that the characteristics of the existing systems are known. This can be achieved by a proper combination of field measurements and use of simulation models. Thus, the reliable measurements of certain hydrodynamics quantities such as discharge, velocity, water level, pressure, etc. in addition to the data on status of flow regulation and similar elements in the systems are the major source of information on both the characteristics and conditions in existing systems.