Water utility operators have long known that throttling down system pressure
reduces total consumption, and this strategy is sometimes used to deal with
short-term supply shortages. Water pressure can vary considerably across
households if each dwelling is not fitted with its own pressure-regulating
valve, especially in areas of varying elevation. And this uneven pressure
affects domestic irrigation the most, because the irrigation offshoot is often
taken before the pressure-regulating valve, if such a valve is present at all.
Therefore, there is good reason to believe that reducing pressure will save
water. For this reason, system pressure optimization is included as a
Potential Best Management Practice (PBMP) in the Memorandum of
Understanding Regarding Urban Water Conservation in California (MOU).
But, utility-operations staff normally harbor concerns about the impact of
pressure reductions on pressure-related customer complaints, although the
sensitivity of customer complaints to system pressure has never been
systematically studied. This study examines how effective
this PBMP is likely to be in practice in terms of both water savings and
increased customer complaints. One potential benefit that was not evaluated
in this study, however, is the impact of reduced pressure on lowering water
lost to leakage, which may be significant in older cities with a high percentage
of unaccounted for water. Includes reference.
| Edition : | Vol. - No. |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 200 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 2 |
| Published : | 06/15/2003 |
