A Novel Approach for Classifying Leakage in Water Networks

Water loss is arguably one of the biggest challenges currently facing water distributors globally, with water lost through leakage a key area of concern. Leakage not only impacts customers, but has significant environmental and financial implications. Whilst much has been written on the topic of how to calculate or predict leakage, water distributors face a challenge in their approach to response, with no consensus on the categorisation of leakage. That is, whilst there are established approaches to stating the amount of water lost through leakage, determining which areas to respond to as a priority is non-trivial, especially when limited resources are a concern. In this work, an approach to classifying leakage using a simple statistical approach is presented, banding leakage from least to most severe. Domain experts in the UK water industry have verified this approach on real-world data.