Enhanced e-FAVOR leak detection method accounting for varying water demands

<p dir="ltr">The FAVOR method, based on the relationship between the inlet pressure to a District Metered Area (DMA) and the level of leakage, was first described by John May in 1994. De Montfort University (DMU) in 2011 extended this method (named e-FAVOR) by incorporating pressure measurements at multiple internal nodes and defining sensitive leakage measurand to pinpoint burst locations. Recently, after gaining some practical experience DMU introduced significant enhancements of the methodology, in particular accounting for time varying water demands and also developing a supporting software, Styx. The methodology and the software have been applied to a real system, initially by using synthetic data and subsequently using field measurements. This paper describes new aspects of the methodology and the supporting software, Styx. The new functions were validated using synthetic data generated from St Servais Centre DMA model which was provided by Société wallonne des eaux. The proposed modifications stem from practical experience and aim to represent the situation in the field more realistically.</p><p dir="ltr">This paper was presented at the 21st Computing and Control in the Water Industry Conference (CCWI 2025) at the University of Sheffield (1st - 3rd September 2025).</p>