Design and Implementation of a Network Management System for Water Distribution Networks

With growing urbanization, efficient and fair distribution of water to households is critical. A typical water distribution network (WDN) consists of pipes connected by devices such as pumps, valves and tanks. The health of the network is determined by monitoring parameters such as rate of flow, pressure at a point, demand at a point. Drawing parallel with telecommunication networks, we modelled the WDN using network management (NMS) techniques. We then used a commercial NMS, CygNet from NMSWorks, to monitor the WDN. The NMS supports analysis of network performance and control via a plugin interface. This is being implemented in a pilot project at IIT-Madras.