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Advances in Water Resources 31 (2008) 776–786

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Optimization and capacity expansion of a water distribution system

Nien-Sheng Hsu a, Wei-Chen Cheng b, Wen-Ming Cheng a,
Chih-Chiang Wei a, William W.-G. Yeh b,*
a
Department of Civil Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC
b
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA

Received 6 July 2007; received in revised form 10 January 2008; accepted 17 January 2008
Available online 2 February 2008

Abstract

This paper develops an iterative procedure for capacity expansion studies for water distribution systems. We propose a methodology
to analyze an existing water distribution system and identify the potential bottlenecks in the system. Based on the results, capacity expan-
sion alternatives are proposed and evaluated for improving the efficiency of water supply. The methodology includes a network flow
based optimization model, four evaluation indices, and a series of evaluation steps. We first use a directed graph to configure the water
distribution system into a network. The network flow based model optimizes the water distribution in the system so that different expan-
sion alternatives can be evaluated on a comparable basis. This model lends itself to linear programming (LP) and can be easily solved by
a standard LP code. The results from the evaluation tool help to identify the bottlenecks in the water distribution system and provide
capacity expansion alternatives. A useful complementary tool for decision making is composed of a series of evaluation steps with the
bottleneck findings, capacity expansion alternatives, and the evaluation of results. We apply the proposed methodology to the Tou-Qian
River Basin, located in the northern region of Taiwan, to demonstrate its applicability in optimization and capacity expansion studies.
Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Capacity expansion; Network flow model; Linear programming; Reservoir operation; Water distribution system

1. Introduction existing system has physical limitations to meet the growing

The demand for water resources is continuously increas-
ing with the growth of population. Prediction of future
demand is highly uncertain. History shows that when
unplanned needs arise, the original facilities may fail to pro-
duce the expected level of benefits [1]. To meet these
unplanned demands, many studies focus on improving man-
agement strategies for utilizing the water under the existing
system using optimization models. The main challenge of
water resources management is to better utilize limited water
resources by coordinated operation of water distribution
facilities in order to meet the increasing demands under the
existing infrastructure. However, in many situations, the
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 310 8252300; fax: +1 310 8257581.
E-mail addresses: nsshue@ntu.edu.tw (N.-S. Hsu), wccheng@ucla.edu
(W.-C. Cheng), r92521320@ntu.edu.tw (W.-M. Cheng),
d89521007@ntu.edu.tw (C.-C. Wei), williamy@seas.ucla.edu (W.W.-G.
Yeh).
demand. When demand cannot be met, it is necessary to
expand the capacity of the existing system in order to
increase the water supply. Capacity expansion includes
building new storage facilities and increasing the capacity
of the existing infrastructure. In water resources planning,
capacity expansion is necessary, because it is economically
undesirable to build excess capacity in the beginning which
is not utilized when demand is low.
Capacity expansion studies have been conducted for
heavy industries, communication networks, public trans-
portation systems, electrical power services, and water
resource systems [2,3]. Traditionally, dynamic Program-
ming (DP) has been employed as the main algorithm for
capacity expansion problems. In water resource system
studies, capacity expansion planning focuses on sizing, tim-
ing and sequencing of projects [4–10].
In our review of the literature, we found several difficul-
ties when attempting to apply the developed methods to an

0309-1708/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.advwatres.2008.01.009
 N.-S. Hsu et al. / Advances in Water Resources 31 (2008) 776–786
existing complex water resource system which may have
multiple reservoirs, demands, pumping stations, and water
treatment plants. First, most of the above-mentioned
capacity expansion studies use a single objective function
such as minimizing the present value of the total costs.
However, this approach of meeting the demand with a min-
imum cost may not be appropriate in representing the com-
plexity of economic, geologic, social, and financial issues of
storage projects. Second, because of the curse of dimen-
sionality problem, DP models cannot easily handle com-
plex systems in real-life settings. Third, the potential
locations and facilities for expansion are given as prior
information. None of the algorithms mentioned in the liter-
ature identify the bottlenecks in the system.
In this study, we propose a methodology which can be
used to detect the potential bottlenecks and facilitate
capacity expansion plans for the water distribution system.
The proposed methodology is a complementary tool for
capacity expansion planning and decision making. This
methodology helps us to evaluate the existing system as
START
1. Analyze the water distribution system by a
network flow based optimization model
2. Compute four evaluation indices
3. Does a bottleneck exist?
Yes
4. Suggest potential expansion alternatives for the
identified bottleneck
5. Evaluate and select an expansion alternative
6.Update the system with the selected expansion
alternative at Step 5
Fig. 1. The flowchart of the proposed methodology.
777
well as the expanded system to ensure that the facilities
in the water distribution system are operated in accordance
with project objectives. Additionally, it can be used to
assist in decision making and negotiations for real world
applications. To demonstrate its utility, we apply the pro-
posed methodology to a water distribution system of the
Tou-Qian River Basin located in the northern region of
Taiwan.
2. Methodology
The proposed methodology consists of an iterative pro-
cedure that can be used to identify the bottlenecks in a
water distribution system and suggest capacity expansion
alternatives. Fig. 1 shows the flowchart of the proposed
methodology. In the flowchart, there are six major steps:
(1) evaluate the current water distribution system by a net-
work flow based optimization model that minimizes the
total cost; (2) compute four evaluation indices; (3) check
for the existence of bottlenecks; (4) suggest potential
No STOP
778 N.-S. Hsu et al. / Advances in Water Resources 31 (2008) 776–786
expansion alternatives for the most critical bottleneck; (5)
evaluate and select an expansion alternative for the most
critical bottleneck; and (6) update the system with the
selected expansion alternative from Step (5). Steps (1)–(6)
are then repeated with the expanded system until no bottle-
necks are found in the system.
Step (1) configures a water distribution system with a
directed graph as a network and solves this network flow
based optimization problem using a linear programming
(LP) solver in LINGO [11]. The results show the optimized
water distribution under the evaluated system. In Step (2),
the four evaluation indices, which evaluate water supply
and water transportation in the system, are calculated with
the optimal results obtained in Step (1). In Step (3), the
indices that provide the necessary information for the eval-
uation of potential bottlenecks are used to identify the bot-
tlenecks of the water distribution system. If no bottlenecks
are identified, the process is stopped. Otherwise, potential
capacity expansion alternatives for the facility with the
most critical bottleneck problem are proposed in Step (4).
These alternatives are possible scenarios that can alleviate
the identified bottleneck of the system. In Step (5), the pro-
posed alternatives are evaluated using the network flow
based optimization model so that all alternatives are eval-
uated on a comparable basis. Based on this evaluation,
one of these alternatives is selected as the expansion alter-
native for the bottleneck facility. This selected alternative is
then added to the system in Step (6) for capacity expansion.
The procedure, Step (1)–(6), is repeated with the expanded
system until no bottlenecks are found.
3. Network flow based optimization model
In the proposed methodology, an optimization model is
used to evaluate expansion alternatives on a comparable
basis. Although a large number of optimization techniques
are available, no general algorithm exists [1,12–14]. The
choice of an optimization model depends on the character-
istics of the system being considered [15]. In this study, the
network flow based approach is used as the optimization
model to evaluate the water distribution system. This
approach has been widely adopted for optimizing water
distribution systems [16–22]. In a network flow model, a
network system is constructed on a directed graph that rep-
resents the structure of the constraints through a graphical
layout. This directed graph is constructed with a collection
of nodes and a set of arcs. The nodes indicate the facilities,
intersections, and transfer points of the network. The arcs
show possible flows or movements from one node to
another [23]. To configure a water supply system, a node
represents a source, a junction, a diversion structure, a res-
ervoir/storage, or a demand. An arc represents a river, a
channel, an aqueduct, a pipeline, a water treatment plant,
a pump station, or carryover storage of a reservoir. If a
physical or a conceptual system can be represented as a
directed graph, such a system can be described as a net-
work flow based model. This graphical representation can
be easily comprehended by decision makers. These easy-
to-comprehend characters make network flow based mod-
els useful, complementary tools for decision making.
Diba et al. [24] used a network flow based linear pro-
gramming model to plan the operation of a large-scale
water distribution system in the Metropolitan Water Dis-
trict of Southern California (MWD). Yang et al. [17,18]
applied this optimization model to analyze the reliability
of a water distribution network system of the MWD. This
approach has also been used to minimize water shortage
and improve operational policies. Sun et al. [16] and Hsu
and Cheng [21] used the network flow approach to
describe, respectively, the MWD water distribution system
and a water distribution system in northern Taiwan. In
both cases, the objective functions were to minimize water
shortage. Tu et al. [15] proposed a mixed integer linear pro-
gramming (MILP) model, which is a network flow based
model with binary variables to incorporate the rule curves
and hedging rules in the linear programming model. In the
MILP model, a set of rule curves and hedging rules are rep-
resented by a set of linear constraints with binary variables.
We follow the general formulation of Tu et al. [15], in
which the network flow model has the following standard
form of minimizing an objective function and is subject
to a set of constraints:
X
T X
Min cði;jÞ;t  xði;jÞ;t ð1Þ
t¼1 ði;jÞ2A
X X
s:t: xðj;iÞ;t  xði;jÞ;t ¼ bj;t 8j 2 N ð2Þ
ðj;iÞ2A ði;jÞ2A
xmin max
ði;jÞ;t 6 xði;jÞ;t 6 xði;jÞ;t 8ði; jÞ 2 A ð3Þ
where t is the time index; T is the total number of time peri-
ods; i and j are node indices; (i, j) is the arc in which water
flows from the upstream node i to the downstream node j;
N denotes the node set; A denotes the arc set; x(i,j),t denotes
the nonnegative flow in arc (i, j) at time t and is the decision
variable; xmin max
ði;jÞ;t and xði;jÞ;t are the lower and upper bounds of
x(i,j),t; c(i,j),t is the weighting factor (unit cost) for x(i,j),t in
arc (i,j); and bj,i is the source/sink term at node j. The
weighting factor c(i,j),t in Eq. (1) specifies the priority of
each decision variable x(i,j),t. Eq. (2) represents the continu-
ity equation as well as the network flow system layout. The
node type is defined by bj,i. The positive, negative, and zero
numbers of the bj,i represent source nodes, sink nodes, and
junction nodes. Eq. (3) specifies the upper and lower
bounds of each flow x(i,j),t in an arc.
The continuity equation for a reservoir can be written as
S t1 þ I t  Rt ¼ S t ð4Þ
subject to
S min;t 6 S t 6 S max;t ð5Þ
where St1 is the beginning storage of time period t; St is
the ending storage of time period t; It is the inflow to the
reservoir during time period t; Rt is the water released from
the reservoir during time period t; Smin,t is the minimum
 N.-S. Hsu et al. / Advances in Water Resources 31 (2008) 776–786
storage of the reservoir at the end of time period t; and
Smax, t is the maximum storage of the reservoir at the end
of time period t. By representing Eqs. (4) and (5) using
the same form of Eqs. (2) and (3), we arrive at
X X
xðj;iÞ;t  xði;jÞ;t ¼ xðj;jÞ;t1  xðj;jÞ;t 8j 2 N R ð6Þ
ðj;iÞ2A ði;jÞ2A
xmin
ðj;jÞ;t 6 xðj;jÞ;t 6 xmax
ðj;jÞ;t 8j 2 N R
where x(j,j),t1 and x(j,j),t are the storage volumes of the car-
ryover storage arcs (j, j) at the reservoir node j at time
(t  1) and t, respectively; NR is the reservoir node set;
xmin
ðj;jÞ;t is the minimum storage of the carryover arc at time
t; and xmax
ðj;jÞ;t is the maximum storage of the carryover arc
at time t. Note that the right hand side of Eq. (6),
x(j,j),t1  x(j,j),t, is equivalent to the bj,i term in Eq. (4).
However, x(j,j),t1 and x(j,j),t are decision variables.
For continuity, the ending storage of a reservoir is
expressed by a carryover-over arc. This implies that each
time period has an individual network flow system that rep-
resents the physical layout. The individual system for the
current time period is linked to the next time period by
the carryover arcs so that all the individual systems are
linked over the entire planning horizon.
4. Indices used to identify bottleneck
To identify potential bottlenecks in a water distribution
system, we introduce the Shortage Index (SI), the Stability
Degree (SD), the Loading Rate (LR), and the Congestion
Frequency (CF). The SI and SD are used to evaluate water
supply for the entire water distribution system, a group of
demands, or a single demand. LR and CF are used to eval-
uate water transportation for each arc in the water supply
system. The definitions of these four indices are as follows:
M  2
100 X ASt0
SI ¼ ð8Þ
M t0 ¼1 ADt0
PM !
t0 ¼1 ASt0
SD ¼ 1  PM  100% ð9Þ
t0 ¼1 ADt0
PT
xði;jÞ;t
LRði;jÞ ¼ Pt¼1
T max
 100% 8ði; jÞ 2 A ð10Þ
t¼1 xði;jÞ;t
N distribution system of the Tou-Qian River Basin in north-
CF ¼  100%
T ern Taiwan. Fig. 2 shows the geographic location of the
where M is the total number of years in the planning hori-
zon; ASt0 is the annual water shortage for the year t0 ; ADt0 is
the annual demand; and N is the total number of time peri-
ods of congestion.
Each of these indices indicates a characteristic of a water
distribution system and ranges from 0 to 100. The SI index
was proposed by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers [25,26]
and has been used in the United States and Taiwan. This
index shows the impact of the shortage and also implies
the socioeconomic impact of the deficit by squaring the def-
icit ratio [27]. The SI index shows that a large concentrated
779
shortage will cause more serious damage than a sequence
of smaller shortages even if the total amount of the deficit
is the same. A smaller value means a lower impact for the
water distribution system. In this way, the SI index helps us
to identify the existence of bottlenecks in the system. The
acceptable threshold of the SI has a value of 1 in Taiwan
[28]. If the SI value is higher than 1, bottlenecks exist in
ð7Þ the system.
On the other hand, the value of the SD index character-
izes the average degree of deficit in water supply during the
planning horizon. The extreme values, 0 and 100, indicate
no water supply and no water deficit, respectively. A value
of 80 means, on average, there is a 20% water deficit in the
system. Clearly, a low SD index value implies severe short-
age in water supply.
The average loading of each arc is evaluated by the LR
index, defined as the ratio of the water transported by an
arc to the capacity of the arc during the planning horizon.
Higher values represent heavier loading situations for a
specific arc and indicate the potential for insufficient capac-
ity. A value of 80 means, on average, 20% of the arc capac-
ity will not be utilized during the planning horizon.
The CF index shows the frequency of congestion, or full
loading, of an arc. The value of CF indicates the percent-
age of time that a specific arc is fully loaded. A high value
of CF implies severe congestion and arc insufficiency.
The SI and SD indices are used to assess the shortage sit-
uation whereas the LR and CF indices help to identify
potential bottlenecks in the system. A combination of these
four indices and the directed graph provides the necessary
information for identifying potential bottlenecks. If the SI
index value is lower than 1, the facilities of the evaluated
water distribution system are considered sufficient for
delivering water to meet the demand. If the SI index value
is higher than one, the SD index can provide information
regarding the degree of deficit while the LR and the CF
indices help to identify potential bottlenecks.
5. Application of the methodology
5.1. System description
The proposed methodology was applied to the water
ð11Þ
basin. The study area contains the Tou-Qian River and
the Feng-Shan River, with a total area of 816 km2 and
lengths of 63 km and 45 km, respectively. The average
annual runoff of the basin is 9.15  108 cubic meters
(m3). The annual demands for agricultural, industrial,
and municipal uses are 1.77  108 m3, 6  106 m3, and
2.8  108 m3, respectively. Since the water supply for both
industrial demand and municipal demand must be treated
by water treatment plants, we combine both industrial
and municipal demands and characterize these as ‘‘public
demand” in the capacity expansion study. An off-stream
reservoir, the Bao-Shan Reservoir, with a capacity of
780 N.-S. Hsu et al. / Advances in Water Resources 31 (2008) 776–786
Feng-Shan Tao-Yuan
River County
Shin-Zhu
City Tou-Qian
River
You-Luo
River
Shin-Zhu
Maio-Li
Taiwan County
County
Shang-Ping
River
Long-En weir
Bao-Shan II reservoir
Bao-Shan reservoir
Fig. 2. The geographic location and the map of the Tou-Qian River Basin.
5.35  106 m3, was constructed in 1981 to meet public
demand. In the water distribution system, there are four
inflows, six agriculture demands, one public demand, and
five water treatment plants. Fig. 3 shows the network rep-
resentation of the water distribution system for the study
area. Because of the highly uneven distribution of the
inflows (Fig. 4) and the rising public demand (Table 1),
the current water distribution system is unable to meet
the growing demand. Additionally, there are water quality
and stability requirements for public demand. The current
water distribution system has only one operating reservoir,
the Bao-Shan Reservoir. While the Bao-Shan water treat-
ment plant only receives water released from the Bao-Shan
Reservoir, the other treatment plants can only receive
uncontrolled stream flow and supply public demand. Table
2 shows the capacities of each of the five water treatment
plants.
The time period used for planning purposes in Taiwan is
10 days. This is consistent with agricultural planning and
practice in Taiwan. Each month has three time periods.
The first and second 10-day-periods of a month are the first
two time periods of the month. The remaining days of the
month are grouped into the third 10-day period.
5.2. Optimization model for the Tou-Qian River Basin
In this case study, each demand node may receive water
from different sources. Agriculture demands are supplied
by uncontrolled natural stream flow only. Public demand
is supplied by uncontrolled natural stream flow as well as
reservoir release. Release from reservoirs has the ability
to regulate the stability of the water supply for public
demand. By introducing priorities for water use, a compos-
ite objective function can be defined as
X X
Max ðC 1ði;jÞ;t Þxði;jÞ;t þ ðC 2ði;jÞ;t Þxði;jÞ;t
ði;jÞ2Ag ði;jÞ2Ap
X X
þ ðC 3ði;jÞ;t Þxði;jÞ;t þ ðC 4ðj;jÞ;t Þxðj;jÞ;t ð12Þ
ði;jÞ2Ar ðj;jÞ2Ae
where x(i,j),t is the flow in the arc (i, j) at time t. Index A rep-
resents a set of nodes associated with indicated arcs sup-
plied by specific water resources. The indicated arcs and
water resources are defined by the subscripts g, p, r, and
e which represent agriculture demands supplied by uncon-
trolled nature stream flow, public demand nodes supplied
by uncontrolled nature stream flow, public demands sup-
plied by reservoir release, and storage remained in reser-
voirs by carryover storage arcs, respectively. The C
coefficients are weighting factors for water utilization.
The superscripts, 1–4, of the coefficients denote the associ-
ated weighting factors with Ag, Ap, Ar, and Ae. These
weighting factors represent the priority of each type of
water use. The higher the value of the coefficient C in Eq.
(12), the higher the priority for water supply. In this study,
the relationships among the Cs are predefined as
C1 > C2 > C3 > C4. The predefined relationship implies
that the agriculture demand has a higher priority than
the public demand. In general, the priority of the public de-
mand is higher than the agriculture demand. However, be-
cause of historical reasons, the water right of the
agricultural demand in the study area has a higher priority
over the public demand. In addition, the relationship
shows that taking water from the nature stream flow has
a higher priority than taking water from the reservoir stor-
age. Table 3 lists the coefficients used in this study, which
are determined based on a sensitivity analysis [28]. Results
from the sensitivity analysis show that a larger difference
among coefficients provides more reliable and robust solu-
tions. If values of the coefficients are closer to each other,
different water uses may interfere. Therefore the coefficients
for different uses are defined by a different order of magni-
tude. This set of coefficients has been tested in the sensitiv-
ity analysis. To convert Eq. (12) to a standard
minimization problem as posted in Eq. (1), we multiply
Eq. (12) by a minus sign:
X X
Min  ðC 1ði;jÞ;t Þxði;jÞ;t  ðC 2ði;jÞ;t Þxði;jÞ;t
ði;jÞ2Ag ði;jÞ2Ap
X X
 ðC 3ði;jÞ;t Þxði;jÞ;t  ðC 4ðj;jÞ;t Þxðj;jÞ;t ð13Þ
ði;jÞ2Ar ðj;jÞ2Ae
Eq. (13) and constraints (6) and (7) form the LP optimiza-
tion model. In this model, there are 45,761 decision vari-
ables and 44,646 linear constraints. Twenty seconds were
needed to run the optimization once with a Centrino
Duo 1.8 T2400 CPU. This LP model was solved with LIN-
GO 6.0 [11], a commercially available optimization solver.
 N.-S. Hsu et al. / Advances in Water Resources 31 (2008) 776–786 781

Fig. 3. The network representation for the water distribution system of the Tou-Qian River Basin.

900 Table 1
Public demand for year 2006, 2011, 2016, and 2021
800
Year Demand (CMDa)
700
2006 570,000
600 2011 706,667
Inflow (cms)

2016 843,333
500
2021 980,000
400 a
CMD: cubic meter per day.
300

200 Table 2
Capacity of water treatment plants
100
Water treatment plant Capacity (CMD)
0
1 6 11 16 21 26 31 36 Gung-Xi and Shin-Pu 14,600
Time (10-day) Shin-Zhu 290,000
Nan-Ya 10,000
Fig. 4. Average annual inflow in the Tou-Qian River Basin. Yuan-Dong 32,000
Bao-Shan 110,000

The optimization model needed the inflows, the planned

demands, the reservoir release limitations, and the arc years of historical inflow data (1971-2001) were used. For
capacity limitations as input data. For the inflow data, 31 the planned demands, public demand was considered to
782 N.-S. Hsu et al. / Advances in Water Resources 31 (2008) 776–786

Table 3 Table 4
Weighting coefficients The evaluation results of the current water distribution system
Type of use Type of source Weighting coefficient Priority SI SD (%)
3
Agriculture Nature stream flow 100 1 Agriculture demand 0.19 97.1
Public Nature stream flow 1003l 2 Public demand 8.37 71.7
Public Reservoir release 1002 3
Reservoir storage Carryover storage 100 4
The SI value of public demand, 8.37, is much higher than
the desired value of 1, implying a severe water supply short-
be constant for all time periods and agricultural demands age for public demand. In addition, the optimized SD
had different values for each of the 10-day-periods. index value of 71.7 indicates that, on average, 28.3% of
Because a 10-day time period is used in this study, we the public demand is not satisfied. Therefore the SI and
must give special consideration to diversion from the SD indices show that the water supply for public demand
Long-En weir, a diversion structure for taking water from is insufficient. We note that there is only one public
the Tou-Qian River to the Shin-Zhu and Nan-Yan water demand node – Shin-Zhu Public Demand – in the water
treatment plants. Because the maximum capacity for tak- distribution system. This public demand receives water
ing water from the Long-En weir is 20 m3 per second from five water treatment plants. Although the total capac-
(cms) or 1,728,000 m3 per day (CMD), we cannot directly ity of these five plants is higher than the Shin-Zhu public
apply this value to a 10-day model. If we directly use this demand, because of the uneven distribution of stream flows
value times the number of days in each time period as there is still a need to evaluate the sufficiency of the five
the upper bound of the arc capacity, we are over estimating water treatment plants.
the water availability from the weir. In fact, if the discharge Insufficient water resources and insufficient water supply
at the Long-En weir is higher than 1,728,000 m3 in a single capacity in the facility are two possible reasons for the high
day, the surplus water cannot be diverted. Therefore, the SI and low SD values. Specifically, the system’s inability to
actual upper bound is calculated by analyzing the daily meet public demand is due to (1) insufficient capacity of
flow record at the Long-En weir before running the optimi- water treatment plants and (2) insufficient natural water
zation model. The upper bound can be computed with the resources. The optimized LR and CF values can help to
following equation: identify the possible cause. As can be seen from Table 5,
X
n^t the LR values for the current capacity of 110,000 CMD
xmax
ðj;iÞ;t ¼ minðxcap
ðj;iÞ ; Qj;^t Þ 8j 2 N w ; ðj; iÞ 2 Aw ð14Þ are all less than 1, indicating that the total water supply
^t¼1
capacity of the facilities is not exceeded. However, the cor-
where Nw and Aw are the node set of the weir j and the arc responding high CF values indicate that these water treat-
set which diverts water from the weir j, respectively. ^t is the ment plants are heavily loaded most of time, from 80.8% to
day index in a 10-day period. The term n^t is the number of 91.0%. Therefore, we assume that the capacity of the Bao-
days in time period t. The actual upper bound for taking Shan water treatment plant is the critical bottleneck of the
water at the Long-En weir, xmax ðj;iÞ;t , is then defined by the
system. We then proposed four capacity expansion alterna-
minimum value of the physical daily capacity xcap ði;jÞ of the
tives for the identified bottleneck. Table 5 also summarizes
arc (i, j) and the uncontrolled natural flow Qj;^t in day ^t of the results for the four expanded capacities (220,000;
time period t. This constraint reflects the real situation 330,000; 440,000; and 550,000 CMD). The resulting SI val-
and avoids taking unavailable water during flood periods.
Table 5
5.3. Capacity expansion analysis for the Tou-Qian River Evaluation results for capacity expansion of the Bao-Shan water treatment
Basin plant
Capacity of Bao- SI SD (%) LR (%)
The proposed methodology for bottleneck identification Shan treatment CF (%)
and capacity expansion was applied to the water distribu- plant (103 CMD)
Gung- Shin- Nan- Yuan- Bao-
tion system associated with the Tou-Qian River Basin. Xi and Zhu Ya Dong Shan
We first found the potential bottlenecks in the system Shin-Pu
and then proposed expansion alternatives for alleviating 110 (current) 8.37 71.7 87.6 88.1 88.7 88.8 93.5
the identified bottlenecks. The optimization model and 86.4 80.8 88.6 88.1 91.0
the four evaluation indices mentioned earlier were used 220 2.76 85.8 87.6 88.2 88.5 88.6 83.3
to accomplish the goal. 86.4 80.8 88.4 87.9 78.4
330 2.59 86.6 87.6 87.8 90.3 91.0 56.9
To begin the analysis, we first evaluated the current 86.4 80.6 90.1 90.4 2.7
water supply situation. The evaluation results for the water 440 2.58 86.7 87.6 87.8 90.8 90.9 42.8
distribution system, depicted in Fig. 3, are shown in Table 86.4 80.6 90.8 90.2 1.6
4. As can be seen, the optimized SI index value of agricul- 550 2.58 86.7 87.6 87.6 91.0 92.4 34.3
ture and public demands are 0.19 and 8.37, respectively. 86.4 80.0 91.0 91.8 0
 N.-S. Hsu et al. / Advances in Water Resources 31 (2008) 776–786 783

ues show that the proposed expansion alternatives reduced
the water shortage situation. Although the SI values were
reduced from 8.37 to 2.58, the final value is still higher than
the desired value. Therefore, we concluded that the most
critical bottleneck of the system is due to the insufficiency
of available water. This deficiency may be due to an insuf-
ficient natural stream flow and/or uneven distribution of
the natural stream flow over the planning horizon. The
stream flow data show that the total amount of the stream
flow is much higher than the overall demands, but the tem-
poral distribution of the stream flow is highly uneven
(Fig. 4). Based on a detailed analysis of economic, geologic,
ecological, social, and financial issues, the Water Resources
Agency of Taiwan (WRA) proposed the construction of
the Bao-Shan II Reservoir, an off-stream reservoir parallel
to the Bao-Shan reservoir. The Bao-Shan II Reservoir has
a proposed storage capacity of 31.34  106 m3 for supply-
ing water for public demand downstream of the reservoir.
Therefore, we included the Bao-Shan II Reservoir in the
capacity expansion study. (Henceforth we refer to the
water distribution system with the proposed Bao-Shan II
Reservoir as the expanded system.) Fig. 3 also shows the
network representation of the expanded water distribution
system.
We repeated the evaluation procedure. The expanded
water distribution system was analyzed and evaluated.
Table 6 shows the results for the expanded system. For
the 2006 year demand, by adding the proposed Bao-Shan
II Reservoir, the SI index value for the current capacity
of 110,000 CMD was reduced from 8.37 to 7.58. This
shows that a severe water shortage still remains even with
the proposed reservoir added to the current system. The
results also imply that the bottleneck of the system has
shifted the water inefficiency elsewhere. In fact, the LR
and CF values of the Bao-Shan water treatment plant have
reached 100%, implying that the plant is loaded to its
designed capacity throughout the planning horizon.
Clearly, the bottleneck of the system has shifted from water
insufficiency to the capacity of the Bao-Shan water treat-
ment plant.
To alleviate the bottleneck, we proposed three capacity
expansion alternatives for the Bao-Shan water treatment

Table 6
Evaluation results for the capacity expansion of the Bao-Shan water treatment plant with the expanded system under the demand of years 2006, 2011,
2016, and 2021
Year of the Capacity of Bao-Shan SI SD LR (%)
demand treatment plant (103 CMD) CF (%)
Gung-Xi Shin-Zhu Nan-Ya Yuan-Dong Bao-Shan
and Shin-Pu
2006 110 (current) 7.58 72.9 87.6 88.1 88.5 88.7 100.0
86.4 80.7 88.4 88.1 100.0
220 0.88 92.1 87.6 88.1 88.6 88.8 99.7
86.4 80.9 88.5 88.0 99.6
440 0.29 96.9 87.6 87.9 90.3 90.4 56.1
86.4 80.7 90.2 89.8 8.2
660 0.27 97.9 87.6 87.5 92.2 93.7 38.2
86.4 79.6 90.1 88.7 0
2011 110 (current) 17.12 58.8 87.6 88.1 88.5 88.7 100.0
86.4 80.7 88.4 88.1 100.0
220 6.78 74.3 87.6 88.1 88.6 88.8 99.7
86.4 80.9 88.5 88.0 99.6
440 0.96 92.6 87.6 87.5 91.9 93.7 79.3
86.4 79.9 91.8 93.3 11.5
660 0.82 93.7 87.6 87.5 91.7 93.7 54.0
86.4 79.9 91.6 93.3 4.9
2016 110 (current) 25.83 49.3 87.6 88.1 88.5 88.7 100.0
86.4 80.7 88.4 88.1 100.0
220 14.36 62.3 87.6 88.1 88.6 88.8 99.7
86.4 80.9 88.5 88.0 99.6
440 3.06 83.8 87.6 88.2 88.4 88.6 91.2
86.4 80.8 88.4 87.9 88.6
660 1.99 88.4 87.6 87.9 89.8 90.2 66.7
86.4 80.9 89.7 89.4 6.5
2021 110 (current) 33.25 42.4 87.6 88.1 88.5 88.7 100.0
86.4 80.7 88.4 88.1 100.0
220 21.63 53.6 87.6 88.1 88.6 88.8 99.7
86.4 80.9 88.5 88.0 99.6
440 8.10 72.1 87.6 88.2 88.4 88.6 91.2
86.4 80.8 88.4 87.9 88.6
660 3.62 83.4 87.6 88.0 89.0 89.4 77.5
86.4 80.8 88.9 88.8 9.1
784 N.-S. Hsu et al. / Advances in Water Resources 31 (2008) 776–786

plant from its current capacity of 110,000 CMD to 660,000 35

CDM. Table 6 shows the evaluation results. The optimiza-

30
tion model was carried out and the four indices were calcu-
lated for each of the expansion alternatives. 25
Table 6 and Fig. 5 show the results. They indicate that

SI Index
20
the increase in capacity of the Bao-Shan water treatment
plant has indeed reduced the shortage situation as reflected 15
by the dramatically reduced SI index values. We also notice
that there is little improvement in the SI index once the 10

capacity of the Bao-Shan water treatment reached

5
440,000 CMD. The optimized LR and CF values show that
the bottleneck of the Bao-Shan water treatment plant can 0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
be alleviated by the proposed expansion alternatives. To
obtain more information, the demands for years 2011, Capacity of the Bao-Shan Water Treatment Plant (10,000CMD)

2016, and 2021 were also used to evaluate the water supply Fig. 5. SI-capacity relationship of the Bao-Shan water treatment plant
under the proposed alternatives. The results show that the under the expanded system.
capacity of the Bao-Shan water treatment plant should be

Table 7
Evaluation results for capacity expansion of Shin-Zhu water treatment plant under the expanded system with capacity of Bao-Shan water treatment plant
being expanded to 440,000 CMD with the demand of the year 2006
Year of the Capacity of Shin-Zhu SI SD LR (%)
demand treatment plant (103 CMD) CF (%)
Gung-Xi Shin-Zhu Nan-Ya Yuan-Dong Bao-Shan
and Shin-Pu
2006 290 (current) 0.29 96.9 87.6 87.9 90.3 90.4 56.1
86.4 80.7 90.2 89.9 8.2
450 0.28 97.0 87.6 82.7 86.9 87.7 29.8
86.4 67.4 86.6 86.9 8.2
600 0.27 97.0 50.7 71.5 60.3 61.9 20.6
49.5 0 60.2 61.1 8.2
2011 290 (current) 0.96 92.6 87.6 87.5 91.9 93.7 79.3
86.4 79.9 91.8 93.3 11.5
450 0.93 92.8 87.6 82.1 91.7 93.7 53.2
86.4 66.5 91.5 93.2 11.5
600 0.91 92.9 87.6 76.8 91.4 93.7 32.6
86.4 56.9 91.3 93.1 11.6
750 0.91 92.9 56.8 67.3 65.7 67.5 26.3
55.6 0 65.6 67.0 11.6
2016 290 (current) 3.06 83.8 87.6 88.2 88.4 88.6 91.2
86.4 80.8 88.4 87.9 88.6
450 1.94 88.2 87.6 82.9 83.7 84.6 73.3
86.4 69.3 83.4 83.9 16.9
600 1.91 88.4 87.6 77.1 88.1 90.3 52.8
86.4 56.8 88.1 89.8 17.2
750 1.90 88.4 87.6 72.4 87.0 90.2 34.6
86.4 50.6 86.9 89.8 17.2
850 1.89 88.4 61.1 67.6 64.9 67.2 30.4
59.8 0 64.9 66.8 17.2
2021 290 (current) 8.10 72.1 87.6 88.2 88.4 88.6 91.2
86.4 80.8 88.4 87.9 88.6
450 3.96 81.7 87.6 83.5 78.1 78.5 86.1
86.4 67.5 77.8 77.7 82.4
600 3.34 83.7 87.6 77.5 81.1 83.3 69.8
86.4 56.7 81.1 82.9 23.2
750 3.31 83.7 87.6 72.8 80.2 83.1 51.6
86.4 50.6 80.2 82.7 23.6
850 3.30 83.7 87.6 70.0 79.7 83.2 40.6
86.4 47.0 79.7 82.7 23.7
1,000 3.29 83.8 64.5 64.0 61.0 63.9 33.0
63.3 0 61.0 63.5 23.7
 N.-S. Hsu et al. / Advances in Water Resources 31 (2008) 776–786
larger than 440,000 CMD to satisfy the desired level of
water supply under the demand of the year 2011. Based
on an additional analysis, the WRA of Taiwan proposed
to expand the capacity of the Bao-Shan water treatment
to 440,000 CMD. This expansion can satisfy the demand
through year 2011. But after the year 2011, as shown by
Table 6, new bottlenecks will arise. The demand cannot
be satisfied for years 2016 and 2021, even if the capacity
of the Bao-Shan water treatment is expanded to 660,000
CMD. This deficit and low CF values imply that the bottle-
neck of the system has shifted to other locations.
To evaluate the bottleneck of the system after the year
2011, we repeated the procedure. The highest LR and
CF values are located at the Nan-Ya and Yuan-Dong
water treatment plants when the Bao-Shan water treat-
ment plant is expanded to 440,000CMD. From the sys-
tem map (Fig. 3), we can see that the Nan-Ya and
Shin-Zhu water treatment plants are in parallel. There-
fore, there is no preference with regard to which one
to select for expansion. In addition, these two water
treatment plants are located downstream of the river
basin. All the water available in the river basin can be
used to supply the public demand before the water flows
into the ocean if these two water treatment plants are
not fully loaded. The Shin-Zhu water treatment plant
has a much larger capacity (Table 2) with more flexibility
to expand. Therefore, we propose an expansion of the
Shin-Zhu water treatment plant. Table 7 shows the
results obtained from the optimization model. The results
indicate that further increases in capacity of the Shin-
Zhu water treatment plant produced only a small
improvement in the SI index value. This situation implies
that the bottleneck of the system has shifted from the
capacity of the water treatment plants to water availabil-
ity. There are two possibilities: (1) the natural stream
flow is insufficient for supplying demands; or (2) the stor-
age space is too small for storing the water. After ana-
lyzing the stream flow data, we conclude that natural
stream flow is still much larger than demands. Therefore,
new storage facilities or new water sources would be
needed after the Year 2011.
The overall analysis results show that the first bottleneck
of the water supply system was the storage capacity. After
adding the proposed Bao-Shan II Reservoir, the most crit-
ical bottleneck shifted to the Bao-Shan water treatment
plant. After expanding the Bao-Shan water treatment plant
to 440,000 CMD, the SI index value was reduced from 8.37
to 0.29. Further expansion of the Shin-Zhu water treat-
ment improved the shortage situation slightly. Based on
this analysis, the final expanded water distribution system
is able to supply sufficient water through the year 2011.
6. Conclusions
This paper developed a methodology for analyzing a
water distribution system to identify its bottlenecks and
evaluate the possible capacity expansion alternatives for
785
improving water supply efficiency. Using a directed graph,
the water distribution system was represented by a network
flow model. The model was optimized by linear program-
ming so that different expansion alternatives can be evalu-
ated on a comparable basis. The optimization model was
used as the basic evaluation tool to analyze the water dis-
tribution system. The proposed iterative procedure com-
bines the optimization model with four evaluation indices
to identify the bottlenecks in the system and evaluates the
expansion alternatives associated with the identified bottle-
necks. After repeating the procedure, the best solution for
alleviating the bottlenecks of the system can be determined.
This methodology is a complementary tool for decision
making. The utility of the proposed methodology has been
successfully applied to the Tou-Qian water distribution sys-
tem in northern Taiwan. The system is being considered for
capacity expansion by the Taiwan Water Resources
Agency. The results obtained from this study provide the
Agency with a set of capacity expansion schedule and alter-
natives for decision making.
Acknowledgements
The research reported here is supported by the Water
Resources Agency, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan.
The in-depth and constructive reviews provided by two
anonymous reviewers are greatly appreciated.
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