Pipe Database Analysis Transduction to Assess the Spatial Vulnerability to Biofilm Development in Drinking Water Distribution Systems

Biofilm develops in drinking water distribution systems (DWDSs) as complex communities of microorganisms bound by a matrix of organic polymers and attached to pipe walls. Biofilm can lead to various undesirable problems such as deterioration of bacterial water quality, generation of bad tastes and odors, and biocorrosion, among others. Biofilm formation in DWDSs is dependent on a complex interaction of water quality, infrastructure, and operational factors. However, all these factors have not been studied to the same extent, those associated with the design and operation of DWDS being the most forgotten. Several studies have shown the influence that various physical and hydraulic characteristics of DWDSs have on biofilm. However, due to the complexity of the community and the environment under study, their joint influence, apart from few exceptions, has been scarcely studied. To help bridge this gap an agentbased label propagation technique is applied to a previously obtained database to detect in a given DWDS significant pre-relationships among the characteristics of the pipes related to design and operation, their location, and biofilm development. Besides, the edge betweenness algorithm, which is one of the standard measures of centrality and is able to quantify the importance of a pipe in a network, is implemented. This algorithm enable us to know, according to the design and operation of the DWDS (physical and hydraulic aspects), which are the hot spots of the network, where management efforts must be focused to reduce biofilm formation.SCOPUS: ch.b