Water distribution systems (WDSs) in remote communities often operate with limited staffing, aging infrastructure, and insufficient digital tools for monitoring and hydraulic modeling, requiring operators to rely heavily on experience for system management. This study develops an end-to-end digital twin framework for remote and resource-constrained water utilities and demonstrates its implementation in the WDS of Unalakleet, Alaska. To enable continuous monitoring, we first design and deploy a wireless sensor network to collect pressure and temperature measurements throughout the WDS. We then develop a digital twin framework that combines monitoring data with a dynamic hydraulic model to continuously estimate pressures, flow rates, and tank levels. Validating the digital twin model against observations, we show that it accurately reconstructs the hydraulic state using continuously updated monitoring data. Use cases show that the system can diagnose low-pressure events and assess impacts of maintenance outages and fire flows on system pressures. To support operational use, we develop a browser-based interface with interactive time-series and geospatial visualizations for situational awareness and decision-making. The workflow documented in this study provides a transferable template for other remote or resource-limited communities seeking to digitalize their water systems.
Kim et al. (Wed,) studied this question.