Using water consumption smart metering for water loss assessment in a DMA: a case study

In this study we analyse the benefits that may be gained from using a smart metering system to assess water losses at a district level with reference to a real case. Consumptions of all the users of this district metered area (DMA) were monitored at an hourly time step by means of electromagnetic meters. Assuming that information on water consumption was available for only a portion of users, we then estimated the water consumption of the entire DMA and calculated the error committed in this estimation as the number of available users varied. Finally, as the simultaneous hourly pattern of inflow into the DMA was also available, we used the water balance method to assess water losses. The results obtained show that monitoring even only 60% of users makes it possible to achieve an error of less than 2% in the estimation of daily consumption across the entire DMA.