Decision support for the design and operation of water supply systems

Desi**gning and operating water supply systems is a multicriteria task: the energy efficiency shall be minimised while, at the same time, respecting technical requirements, such as balanced operation of available pumps. In this contribution, we present an optimisation and decision support methodology to improve the operation of pumps in the water sector of medium size cities (approximately 100000 inhabitants) in Germany. The emphasis is on the multicriteria nature of the problem. Besides the management of the waterworks system, we consider the goal to assist at the selection of a new pump. We discuss several examples to emphasise the benefits of obeying the rules of multicriteria decision-making and involving the user into the decision process.