In this paper we investigated and analyzed the concept of virtual district metered area (DMA) as the core objective of the research to resolve the current gap and limitations of the actual district metered area state of practice through the development of virtual district metered area pipeline leak detection and classification system using multi-class support vector machine (SVM) advanced pattern recognizer at Lille University water supply pipeline networks study area the so called "Zone-6". The SVMs were trained on multiple cases representing the presence of leaks in various sizes and locations. The research results, and analysis showed a rather promising performance, which could be successfully implemented. Moreover, the proposed method could enable the water utility companies and other stakeholders to further reduce risks associated with pipeline leaks or breaks. This method also can be used during decision-making process for selecting which pipeline requires urgent action, and engineer the optimal short-term response or alternative for maintenance strategies. Furthermore, the proposed methodology could benefit the water utility companies by reducing the cost and operational drawbacks associated with implementing the actual district metered area (DMA). It also improve the day to day operational decision making process by detecting and classifying the different stages of pipelines leaks and breaks according to their severity, which can enable the operators to see the behavior of the network on the control room screens they are familiar with and enable them to quickly perform the best short term response strategy.

This paper presents analysis of water security using risk analysis. It contributes to an enhanced understanding of the water security issue through creating indicators and their use in the determination of the water security level. The paper presents first the methodology followed in this research, which includes three steps: identification of water risk drivers, the determination of their severity and likelihood and finally the calculation of the water security score. The paper presents the first step of the application of this methodology to Palestinian territory through the identification of the drivers of the water risk and the levels of both the severity and likelihood to be used in future water security assessment.

Since air pollution constitutes one of the main environmental threats for human, the World Health Organization (WHO) as well as other national or regional authorities established Air Quality Guidelines (AQGs) to monitor the air pollution and prevent its harmful impact on the population. This paper presents the results of a monitoring program of the air pollution in the scientific campus of Lille university, which aims at measuring the exposure of the campus users to air pollution and to analyse the spatial variation of the pollution in the campus. Results show that despite some peaks in the air pollution and important spatial variation, the air quality is acceptable regarding EU and WHO recommendations.