Shall we always use hydraulic models? A graph neural network metamodel for water system calibration and uncertainty assessment

Representing reality in a numerical model is complex. Conventionally, hydraulic models of water distribution networks are a tool for replicating water supply system behaviour through simulation by means of approximation of physical equations. A calibration process is mandatory to achieve plausible simulation results. However, calibration is affected by a set of intrinsic uncertainty sources, mainly related to the lack of system knowledge. This paper proposes a breakthrough approach for calibrating hydraulic models through a graph machine learning approach. The main idea is to create a graph neural network metamodel to estimate the network behaviour based on a limited number of monitoring sensors. Once the flows and pressures of the entire network have been estimated, a calibration is carried out to obtain the set of hydraulic parameters that best approximates the metamodel. Through this process, it is possible to estimate the uncertainty that is transferred from the few available measurements to the final hydraulic model. The paper sparks a discussion to assess under what circumstances a graph-based metamodel might be a solution for water network analysis.