Sustainable Management of Water Supply Systems using Multi Criteria Models

Twenty-Two management zones spatially distributed in the Piliyandala-Kesbewa Water Supply System undergo problems such as frequent pipe bursting, scaling in old pipes, Non-Revenue Water (NRW) issues and pressure drops. Sustainable management of drinking water supply systems mainly depends on organizational growth, service to stakeholders and system sustenance requirements. Therefore, a multi criteria decision support model is most appropriate to manage a water supply system. There are approximately 15 sub criteria associated with water supply system management and some of them are new water connections, monthly bill collection, operation and maintenance, staff salaries and transport facilities, NRW, low pressure, lack of water, water quality, meter defects, water leaks, etc. Considering these, prioritising of water supply management zones requires Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) models. A questionnaire survey among 78 water supply managers was used for the model development. Calibrated MCDA model weights for Income Generation, System Sustainability, System Losses and System Reliability are 0.64, 0.20, 0.07 and 0.09, respectively. Verification on modelled priority zones with actual practice exhibited a good agreement while providing hints for improved management. This research clearly demonstrated the suitability and method of development of an Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) Multicriteria Decision Model for water supply system management.