EXPLORE—Hybrid Expert System for Water Networks Management

Abstract

A hybrid expert system called EXPLORE has been developed to manage the Seville City water-supply system. The main difficulties are the lack of information on management procedures, the complicated electrical tariff, the variability of the water network topology, and the dependency of the water demands, which is a major uncontrollable factor. EXPLORE reduces the cost of the operation of pumping the water to the different storage tanks. For this task EXPLORE employs the water demand forecast to obtain an optimal daily pumping schedule. EXPLORE has several additional benefits, in that it allows the collection of the operator's experience and the refinement of the operation processes through the simulation of new strategies, and it provides adequate training for new operators. The system has been applied to the management of the Seville City water-supply system. A prototype has been tested and has provided great improvement in the electrical costs (a savings of 25% over the current operation).