Water Supply Threat Reduction Using Evolutionary Approaches

The potential threats to US water supply systems have changed fundamentally in the past four years. Prior to 2001, the major threats were natural causes, accidents, and some malicious behavior by a small group of individuals. Against these threats, water supply agencies have done a truly remarkable job of ensuring a safe, dependable supply. However, threats posed by an organized group of actors may represent a new and different challenge to the security of water supplies. A tool to assist in identifying possible attacks and simultaneously providing remedies to counter these attacks has been developed. The tool uses evolutionary computation as the optimization method, and EPANET as the system simulator. Preliminary examples of its use to identify optimal attacks against a realistic but hypothetical pipe network and corresponding counter measures are presented.