The forecast analysis of the exposure to the contamination risk in a water distribution network requires increasing the quality of the applied input/outputs modeling. This need involves using non-traditional models responding to the increasingly high computation requirements. In this scenario, the Cellular Automata paradigm represents a new frontier with considerable potential. Specifically, this paper describes the Eulerian Water quAlity Modeling—Cellular Automata (EWAM-CA) model, aimed at simulating the sodium hypochlorite (chlorine) injection, transport, and reaction phase in a medium-sized drinking water network. The EWAM-CA accuracy was compared with the Epanet software on a Fossolo water network, in Bologna town (Italy), considering a constant and an impulsive input respectively. Due to CA's intrinsic aptitude for parallel computing, a parallel version of EWAM-CA was developed. Moreover, using the capability of the cellular automata to manage the modeling asynchronously, improving the computational efficiency, we propose a novel approach based on activation/deactivation asynchronous rules, avoiding unnecessary calculations in nodes or pipes where no pollution occurs. The different EWAM-CA versions were compared for the case study, and the parallel EWAM-CA approach coupled with asynchronous functionality significantly improved computational performance.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.