Flexibility ranking of water distribution system designs under future mechanical and hydraulic uncertainty

Annually a large amount of money should be spent by water authorities to adapt and update water distribution systems (WDSs) to the latest client's needs and variations known as adaptation cost. To prevent or lessen WDSs' adaptation cost it is essential to insert a level of flexibility into WDS layouts from the very beginning in planning or designing stages [1]. This study proposed a simple technique based on multi-criteria decision analysis to rank a set of WDS layouts based on their level of flexibility under future mechanical and hydraulic uncertainty. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.