Overview and Recommendations for Analysis of Water Distribution Systems Based on Performance Indicators

The protection of the water sources represents a topic that concerns humanity worldwide. Hence, the decrease of the water losses that occurs in water distribution networks during its overall operational lifetime, is an important issue for water operators and for researchers at theoretical and experimental level. Over the last years progresses have been made on the evaluation and analysis methods in order to eliminate the water losses. Among these methods, the evaluation of the water distribution systems, made on performance indicators by the use of the water balance, is the most current. Thus, the calculated value of each performance indicator and the analysis of these values will lead to the identification of the real problems within the water distribution system. As a result, this analysis has to be the first step in the planning phase of a new project and in the same time, it can serve as a pattern for any water distribution systems in order to decrease the water losses at lower costs.