Using TEVA to Assess Impact of Model Skeletonization on Contaminant Consequence Assessment and Sensor Placement Design

Drinking water systems are known to be vulnerable to contamination by toxic substances, whether the contaminants are introduced intentionally during a terrorist attack, or unintentionally through accidental cross-connections or backflow incidents. Understanding the vulnerability of drinking water distribution systems to contaminant intrusion is currently a major research focus within the federal government and across the water community. The EPA’s National Homeland Security Research Center (NHSRC) developed the Threat Ensemble Vulnerability Assessment (TEVA) Research Program to analyze the vulnerability of drinking water distribution systems to contaminant threats and develop a methodology to design Contamination Warning Systems (CWS). The TEVA Research Program, the NHSRC and its collaborators at the University of Cincinnati, Argonne National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories developed software that accomplishes this task. The software tool uses quantitative health impacts data from probabilistic or exhaustive consequence assessments to optimally locate and evaluate CWS designs for a drinking water distribution system.