Battle of Water Networks

Population growth, urbanization, and climate change have been raising people’s awareness about the impact of human activities on the environment and the available natural sources, such as water resource. In this context, a sustainable management of water systems is crucial to avoid water shortage or the depletion of the available sources, and the operational and strategic decisions made by drinking water utilities can take benefit from a reliable and accurate forecast of water demand, which is the main driver of water distribution systems (WDSs).

In light of the above, the Battle of Water Demand Forecasting (BWDF), organized in the context of the 3rd International WDSA-CCWI Joint Conference in Ferrara, Italy, aims at comparing the effectiveness of methods for the short-term forecast of urban water demand in a set of real District Metered Areas (DMAs). The water-demand forecasting problem can be solved by applying different types of methods and approaches, including – but not limited to – engineering judgement, probabilistic and statistical methods, machine learning tools, and signal-processing models.

The submission of an abstract (maximum 500 words) is required to participate in the BWDF. The abstract has to be submitted through the EasyChair platform by December 15, 2023 January 10, 2024, as detailed in the “Abstract Call” page of the conference website. For all the accepted abstracts, the submission of a full paper will also be required by April 1, 2024, details of which will be provided in early 2024. As in the case of all the other WDSA-CCWI technical sessions, conference registration is needed for at least one member/author of each BWDF participating team.

BATTLE’S RANKING AND THE WINNING TEAM WILL BE ANNOUNCED DURING THE WDSA/CCWI 2024 CONFERENCE