The island of Brač, with an area of 395.4 km2, is the third largest Croatian island. The water supply system of the island of Brač consists of 24 water tanks and 14 pumping stations, which are managed and maintained by the Public Company Vodovod Brač.

The main problem is that the measuring equipment is about twenty years old and unreliable, which causes significant water losses during distribution and the inability to display the current flow. For better detection of losses, these old turbine water meters are being replaced with new magnetic-inductive water meters that, in addition to digital consumption pulses, also provide current flow as an analog quantity at the output.

Based on the investment in this equipment, which includes the reconstruction of the water supply network for the island of Brač, it would be possible to reduce losses in the netork, as well as digital consumption monitoring and the introduction of supervision in the management of the water supply system in orderw to control losses/possible leaks and enable timely and appropriate intervention.

For such a large system, especially in the summer months, we have constant operation of pumps and high consumption of electricity on them, which is also a big problem.

Investing in these activities would improve the water supply of the population of the island of Brač and the quality of life in general (especially in the summer).

Vodovod Brač needs a new transformation into a modern and efficient company that constantly invests in equipping the infrastructure but also investing in human capacities.

When detecting problems in the Brač Waterworks, a major problem is water leakage from the water supply network: the leak is directly related to the pressure in the pipe where the fault is located.

This means:

• The leak will be greatest during the night because water consumption is lowest and thus the pressures are highest.
• The leak will be greatest in winter when consumption is lower than in summer, especially in tourist areas - parts of the water supply area of ​​the island of Brač, so pressures will also be higher then.

Of course, one of the main problems within this water supply is the separate part of reading and monitoring anomalies in water supply systems, including pipe leaks and equipment failures, but also some other applications of sensors in water management (measuring fresh water quality, water quantity or chlorine after treatment).

The most important challenge that we would like to solve through this project would be an applicative solution for monitoring and reducing drinking water losses from the water supply system.

Vodovod Brač d.o.o.

Supetar, Brač, Croatia