UrbanWater: integrating EPANET 2 in a PostgreSQL/PostGIS-based geospatial database management system.

Incorporating data stored within a GIS towards the development of hydraulic simulation models is crucial for operating, updating, and hence redesigning water supply systems (WSS). Building and updating hydraulic models can be both time and resource consuming; moreover, the need to update infrastructure cadastral information makes the model itself outdated; in addition, typical dispersion of data across several databases requires extra efforts to maintain the whole system properly assembled. Albeit there are available some GIS-based hydraulic modelling solutions, they typically use external connections to assemble all components resulting in additional costs and less flexibility. In order to be able to establish a single fully integrated data model towards global characterisation of a WSS and associate hydraulic simulation, this paper proposes the specific implementation of EPANET 2 model in PostgreSQL along with PostGIS extension. The system developed enables model construction, hydraulic simulation, and storage of results within a single database. Required procedures and functions were coded either in pgSQL or Python and their execution were carried out using SQL statements. Finally, a case study was selected in order to test the system proposed. Results showed that an integrated approach allows indeed the expedite creation of more realistic hydraulic models based on the stored cadastral information.