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Webinar

Emergency Preparedness Modeling for Distribution Systems

March 5, 2025
11:00 am - 12:30 pm
Online

(Times listed in Mountain time zone)

Fee per person: $75-member, $120-nonmember

Can’t attend? Register now and watch later, on-demand!


*This webinar is included in the 2025 Annual Webinar Subscription.
*Subscribers will be registered separately.

Objectives

  • Identify ways to use hydraulic models to plan for supply outages (WTP and/or interconnection/tie-in shutdowns).
  • Understand the purpose of water distribution system storage, how it can be leveraged for emergency preparedness, and how it can be evaluated with hydraulic models.
  • Learn how to quantify isolation valve criticality in water distribution systems and use it to prioritize projects for risk and resilience.
  • Identify ways and methods to use hydraulic models to trace and respond to water quality contamination in distribution systems.

Expert Panel

Moderated by: Melissa Brunger, Principal / Vice President, Freese and Nichols, Inc.

Meg Roberts, Distribution Systems Services Leader, Hazen and Sawyer, P.C.

Saša Tomić PhD, PE, Digital Water Lead, Burns & McDonnell Engineering Co. Inc.

Tom Walski, Industry Advisor, Bentley Systems

Description

Water utilities are faced with tough decisions about how to operate, maintain, and improve their water distribution systems. This webinar will focus on helping utilities make informed decisions using hydraulic modeling to quantify and mitigate risks common to distribution systems.

The United States drinking water infrastructure system is made up of over 2.2 million miles of underground pipes. They represent the vast majority of physical infrastructure for water suppliers. Distribution system wear and tear can pose intermittent or persistent health and safety risks, as can unforeseen events and other emergency conditions. America's Water Infrastructure Act (AWIA) of 2018 served as a catalyst for utilities to evaluate their resilience to risk and to create or update emergency response plans for distribution systems. From this effort, many utilities discovered the criticality of their water infrastructure and have been taking steps to evaluate the risk and strengthen emergency preparedness.

Several major areas of emergency preparedness in distribution systems will be covered in this session. Supply outages, both planned and unplanned, distribution system storage, valve criticality, and distribution system contamination will each be discussed with respect to using hydraulic models for emergency preparedness and response.

The presenters will cover the following topics:

  • Introduction and The Challenge of Supply Outages
  • Best Practices for Analyzing Distribution System Contamination
  • Interaction of the System Storage and Resilience
  • Evaluating Adequacy of Valves for Resilience

Webinar registration priced per person. Each registrant will be granted live and on-demand access for one person, on a single computer. Link sharing is strictly prohibited. Presentation slides will be available to download during the webinar and a recording will be available to view after the live webinar concludes.


By registering for this webinar, you submit your personal contact data such as name, address, and email address to the sponsors who will use it to communicate with you regarding this event and their services. If you do not wish to receive any emails from our webinar sponsors, you may follow the sponsors opt out or unsubscribe instructions following receipt of an email from them. You will not be able to opt out prior to receiving an initial email from our webinar sponsors.


DISCLAIMER: The mention of specific products or services in AWWA webinars does not represent AWWA endorsement, nor do the opinions expressed in such webinars reflect the views of AWWA. AWWA does not endorse or approve products or services.

Certificates of Completion

AWWA issues Certificates of Completion for webinars that are viewed in full. Criteria for credits varies from state-to-state. Please contact your licensing agency to see if they will accept our Certificate of Completion. Learn more at awwa.org/credits.