Evaluation of the vulnerability in water distribution systems through targeted attacks

This paper presents the results of a vulnerability analysis in different water distribution system (WDS) benchmarks, performed under a framework based on a graph model that integrates topological features and hydraulic characteristics, allowing the comparison between different attack strategies and centrality measures in terms of their ability to predict the shortage of water supply. This vulnerability framework has been previously applied to electric power systems and it employs a vulnerability prediction measure to quantify the amount of damage caused in terms of the physical damage measure. Different attack strategies and centrality measures were applied to four WDS benchmarks: the New York Tunnel, the Hanoi, the Modena, and the Balerma networks. It was determined that removing the most central element and recalculating the centrality for each stage are the most damaging attack strategies. Degree, eigenvector, and Katz centrality measures presented the best performance to predict the elements that are more relevant to the network and can have a larger impact on the water supply. It was demonstrated that the vulnerability framework can be applied to the WDS in the same way it was previously applied to electric power systems. Future work will be oriented to the design of the WDS using optimization techniques to minimize the vulnerability of the network under faults that can be generated by droughts and other extreme weather conditions.