Emergency Management of Drinking Water Infrastructures Based on a Bayesian Decision Support System

The present work summarizes the theoretical development process and the preliminary results of a research activity oriented to the definition of a Decision Support System (DSS) to be used for managing drinking water systems exposed to different hazard classes. The core of such DSS is a probabilistic vulnerability assessment tool based on Bayesian Belief Networks, mainly developed integrating expert knowledge and literature information. This vulnerability assessment tool proved able to define a reliable map of vulnerability levels for complex and interconnected infrastructures, thus helping decision-makers in the selection of the optimal strategies to respond to emergencies. The DSS is based also on the implementation of hydraulic models, both for gravity and pressurized water mains, which should provide information regarding the changes in the hydraulic behavior of the network due to a specific event or an action. A case study is described, confirming the potentialities of the proposed tool.