A reduced complexity model with graph partitioning for rapid hydraulic assessment of sewer networks
Author(s)
Dobson, Barnaby
Watson‐Hill, Hannah
Muhandes, Samer
Borup, Morten
Mijic, Ana
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Existing, high-fidelity models for sewer network modelling are accurate but too slow and inflexible for modern applications such as optimisation or scenario analysis. Reduced complexity surrogate modelling has been applied in response to this, however, current approaches are expensive to set up and still require high-fidelity simulations to derive parameters. In this study, we compare and develop graph partitioning algorithms to automatically group sections of sewer networks into semi-distributed compartments. These compartments can then be simulated using sewer network information only in the integrated modelling framework, CityWat-SemiDistributed (CWSD), which has been developed for application to sewer network modelling in this study. We find that combining graph partitioning with CWSD can produce accurate simulations 100-1,000x faster than existing high-fidelity modelling. Because we anticipate that many CWSD users will not have high-fidelity models available, we demonstrate that the approach provides reasonable simulations even under significant parametric uncertainty through a sensitivity analysis. We compare multiple graph partitioning techniques enabling users to specify the spatial aggregation of the partitioned network, also enabling them to preserve key locations for simulation. We test the impact of temporal resolution, finding that accurate simulations can be produced with timesteps up to one hour. Our experiments show a log-log relationship between temporal/spatial resolution and simulation time, enabling users to pre-specify the efficiency and accuracy needed for their applications. We expect that the efficiency and flexibility of our approach may facilitate novel applications of sewer network models ranging from continuous simulations for long-term planning to spatially optimising the placement of network sensors.
Date Issued
2022-01
Date Acceptance
2021-12-19
Citation
Water Resources Research, 2022, 58 (1), pp.1-21
ISSN
0043-1397
Publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Start Page
1
End Page
21
Journal / Book Title
Water Resources Research
Volume
58
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© 2021. The Authors.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Identifier
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021WR030778
Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Physical Sciences
Environmental Sciences
Limnology
Water Resources
Environmental Sciences & Ecology
Marine & Freshwater Biology
reduced complexity modeling
surrogate modeling
urban flooding
wastewater modeling
graph partitioning
spatio-temporal resolution
RAINFALL
Environmental Engineering
0406 Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience
0905 Civil Engineering
0907 Environmental Engineering
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2021-12-27