GIS based applications of sensitivity analysis for water distribution models

The goal of sensitivity analysis is the exploration of changes in model response resulting from a change in model input. Sensitivity analysis is a state of the art method and used in several papers and applications to improve the understanding of model behavior and to help separating influential from non-influential parameters. The novelty of this paper is that advantages of GIS in combination with model-based sensitivity analysis are highlighted and used for specific applications. The applications presented are model calibration, pipe diameter design, sensor placement, uncertainty assessment and vulnerability identification. In all cases results of sensitivity analysis are spatially joined at the location allocated by the corresponding network elements. According to the applications calibration, capacity, sensor, uncertainty and vulnerability maps are created. Further, the informative value of all these maps is demonstrated and discussed with a case study. Future work should focus on GIS based application for global sensitivity analysis.