Hydraulic system modelling: Background leakage model calibration in Oppegård municipality

Advanced hydraulic models of water distribution network (WDN) permit to simulate pressure-dependent background leakages from pipes, thus being of direct relevance to support management and planning aimed at water losses reduction. Nonetheless, the "accurate" simulation of real WDN functioning requires the calibration of the leakage model parameters in addition to pipe hydraulic resistances. This work reports a procedure for the calibration of background leakage model and its application to Oppegård WDN. The possibility of combining prior technical insight with field observations permits to calibrate a phenomenological model which is effective for supporting technical decisions, besides limitation of the available information.