The articles and scientific publications mainly concern the following research topics:
- Optimization of the management of artificial reservoirs to overcome drought periods
- Analysis, optimization and protection of water distribution networks in the new context of smart water networks
- Hydrodynamic modeling of underground aquifers for the remediation of contaminated sites
The first theme refers to the research carried out in the field of optimization of the management of an artificial reservoir, in particular the study of techniques for decision support systems - using metaheuristic optimization approaches based on fuzzy logic and genetic algorithms - capable of automatically managing, through specific decision and control systems, the release of the volumes of an artificial reservoir in different operating conditions, ordinary and drought, evaluated with the aid of techniques for identifying and predicting stochastic processes, such as AR, ARX, ARMA, etc., and Monte Carlo type simulation. The research topic was carried out in collaboration with researchers who are experts in electronic control in order to develop a completely automatic management system. The research was conducted on an artificial reservoir in Sicily.
The research conducted on water distribution systems refers to the second topic. In particular - after having investigated the effects of the alteration of the hydraulic performance of the networks due to the application of the districtisation methodology, both pursuant to the Ministerial Decree n. 99 of 1997 and the indications of the main international organizations such as IWA and AWWA, and the opportunities offered by the management of pressures for the reduction of losses in a water distribution network - optimal techniques have been developed for the automatic partitioning of networks based on metaheuristic optimization procedures of the definition of water districts and the degree of regulation of the valves for pressure management.
To this end, starting from graph theory and graph partitioning techniques used in computer science for the distribution of calculation meshes to processors, original algorithms have been developed based on the coupling of hydraulic simulation techniques, also with a pressure driven approach, evolutionary algorithms, such as genetic algorithms and ant algorithms, and graph partitioning techniques.
In particular, within the topic of Smart Water Networks, research is being developed for the definition of methodologies, criteria and algorithms, borrowed from Complex Network Theory, for a better understanding of the relationships between topology, resilience and robustness of water networks, in order to improve their design, management and partitioning into districts.
Furthermore, as part of the optimal management of aqueduct networks, techniques have been developed for identifying the law of demand and loss and the spatio-temporal distribution of demand, and a pilot site has been created where experimental activities have been conducted for the calibration of the models and the validation of the proposed techniques.
With reference to the third topic, the research was aimed at the development of hydrodynamic modeling techniques of aquifers and permeable systems, such as hydraulic barriers and reactive permeable barriers, for the study of the remediation of contaminated sites with innovative technologies.
The publications also concern studies on the spatial distribution of hourly rainfall series and laboratory experiments on the effects of vegetation on the marine flow field.
With reference to the third theme, the research investigated the engineering opportunities offered by the creation of reactive permeable barriers to be inserted within surface and underground aquifers, for the remediation of aquifers contaminated by waste landfills using in situ techniques. The effects of the interaction between soils and materials with different permeability were analyzed in order to develop systems, such as permeable barriers and arrays of permeable wells, optimal for minimizing construction costs and maximizing the effectiveness of remediation.
The research has therefore proposed alternative techniques to the traditional ex situ pump and treat technique, comparing its technological and economic advantages and disadvantages. The aquifer modeling was carried out with heterogeneous and anisotropic saturated soils, using hydraulic conductivities varying in space and time and two-dimensional and three-dimensional approaches. The study was conducted starting from piezometric and contamination data from a real site hosting several waste landfills in Campania.
List of main publications
Books
DI NARDO A., Di Natale M., Di Mauro A.: Water Supply Network District Metering. Theory and Case Study. 01/2012: pages 1-100; Springer.
DI NARDO A., Bortone I., Musmarra D.: Study of the contaminated site of Masseria del Pozzo-Schiavi in the municipality of Giugliano in Campania. Quantitative considerations on the effectiveness of pump and treat technology. 01/2010: pages 0-136; ABBIABBè EDIZIONI, ISBN: 8890210818.
DI NARDO A., Di Natale F., Iacomino A., Iervolino M., Musmarra D.: The underground aquifers in the Giugliano area. A qualitative study. 01/2009: pages 0-120; ABBIABBè EDIZIONI, ISBN: 8890210834.
Book Chapters
Di Nardo A., Santonastaso G. F. (2022). Innovative methods for optimal design of water network partitioning. In: Embracing Analytics in the Drinking Water Industry, eds. J. Lee and J. Keck, IWA Publishing.
Sanneh J., Di Mauro A., Venticinque S., Santonastaso G. F., Di Nardo A., Wang Y., Lee J. (2022). Water demand forecasting | time series data. In: Embracing Analytics in the Drinking Water Industry, eds. J. Lee and J. Keck, IWA Publishing.
Di Mauro A., Santonastaso G. F., Venticinque S., Di Nardo A. (2022). Open Datasets and IoT Sensors for Residential Water Demand Monitoring at the End-Use Level: A Pilot Study Site in Naples, Italy. In: Resilient Water Management Strategies in Urban Settings, IWA Publishing.
Di Nardo A., Bortone I., Chianese S., Di Natale M., Erto A., Musmarra D., Santonastaso G. F. (2017). Water Supply Network Partitioning Based On Weighted Spectral Clustering. In: Complex Networks & Their Applications, Springer International Publishing.
Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Carlo Giudicianni, Roberto Greco, Giovanni Francesco Santonastaso: Water Supply Network Partitioning Based On Weighted Spectral Clustering. Complex Networks & Their Applications V, 11/2016: pages 797-807; ISBN: 978-3-319-50900-6, DOI:10.1007/978-3-319-50901-3_63.
Michele Di Natale, Armando Di Nardo: Urban Meteoric Water Reuse and Management. Urban Water Reuse Handbook, Edited by Saeid Eslamian, 01/2016: chapter 44 - Part X: pages 533-547; CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group, ISBN: 9781482229141, DOI:10.1201/b19646-55.
Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Anna Di Mauro: Water Leakage Management. Water Supply Network District Metering, 01/2013: pages 1-9; DOI:10.1007/978-3-7091-1493-3_1.
Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Anna Di Mauro: Case study: Monterusciello network. Water Supply Network District Metering, 01/2013: pages 39-85; DOI:10.1007/978-3-7091-1493-3_4.
Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Anna Di Mauro: Water District Metering policy and practice. Water Supply Network District Metering, 01/2013: pages 11-24; DOI:10.1007/978-3-7091-1493-3_2.
Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Anna Di Mauro: Design Support Methodology. Water Supply Network District Metering, 01/2013: pages 25-38; DOI:10.1007/978-3-7091-1493-3_3.
Journal Publications
Armando Di Nardo, Carlo Giudicianni, Roberto Greco, Manuel Herrera and Giovanni F. Santonastaso (2018). Applications of Graph Spectral Techniques to Water Distribution Network Management. Water 2018, 10(1), 45.
A. Di Nardo, M. Di Natale, R. Gargano, C. Giudicianni, R. Greco, G. F. Santonastaso (2018). Performance of partitioned water distribution networks under spatial-temporal variability of water demand. Environmental Modeling & Software, Volume 101, March 2018, Pages 128-136. Elsevier.
A. Di Nardo, M. Di Natale, F. ASCE, C. Giudicianni, G. F. Santonastaso, Ph.D. (2018). Simplified Approach to Water Distribution System Management via Identification of a Primary Network. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, Volume 144, Issue 2, February 2018. ASCE.
Armando Di Nardo, Michele Iervolino, Michele Di Natale, Dino Musmarra (2017). Convolution integral vs. finite difference for the inverse problem of detection of a contamination source in rivers. Desalination and Water Treatment 86(2017):277-284.
Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Roberto Greco, Carlo Giudicianni, G. F. Santonastaso (2017). Weighted spectral clustering for water distribution network partitioning, Applied Network Science (2017) 2:19. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41109-017-0033-4.
Di Nardo A., Di Natale M., Giudicianni C., Greco R., Santonastaso G. (2018). Water Distribution Network Clustering: Graph Partitioning or Spectral Algorithms? In: Complex Networks & Their Applications VI,Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol. 689. Springer, Cham.
Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Carlo Giudicianni, Roberto Greco, Giovanni Francesco Santonastaso (2017). Complex network and fractal theory for the assessment of water distribution network resilience to pipe failures. Water Science & Technology: Water Supply, 17(6), IWA.
A. Di Nardo, M. Di Natale, C. Giudicianni, D. Musmarra, J. M. Rodriguez Varela, G. F. Santonastaso, A. Simone, V. Tzatchkov (2017). Redundancy Features of Water Distribution System. Procedia Engineering 186, Pages 412-419.
Angelo Facchini, Antonio Scala, Nicola Lattanzi, Guido Caldarelli, Giovanni Liberatore, Lorenzo Dal Maso, Armando Di Nardo (2017). Complexity Science for Sustainable Smart Water Grids. In: Advances in Artificial Life, Evolutionary Computation, and Systems Chemistry. Springer, Cham.
A. Di Nardo, M. Di Natale, C. Giudicianni, C. Laspidou, F. Morlando, G. F. Santonastaso and D. Kofinas (2017). Spectral analysis and topological and energy metrics for water network partitioning of Skiathos island. European Water 58: 423-428.
Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Carlo Giudicianni, Giovanni Francesco Santonastaso, Velitchko Tzatchkov and José Manuel Rodriguez Varela (2017). Economic and Energy Criteria for District Meter Areas Design of Water Distribution Networks. Water 2017, 9, 463, pp. 2-13; doi:10.3390/w9070463.
Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Carlo Giudicianni, Giovanni Francesco Santonastaso, Velitchko Tzatchkov, José Manuel Rodriguez Varela, Victor Hugo Alcocer Yamanaka: Water Supply Network Partitioning Based on Simultaneous Cost and Energy Optimization. Procedia Engineering 11/2016; 162:238-245. DOI:10.1016/j.proeng.2016.11.048.
Armando Di Nardo, Alberto Cavallo, Michele Di Natale, Roberto Greco, Giovanni Francesco Santonastaso: Dynamic control of water distribution system based on network partitioning. Procedia Engineering 01/2016; 154:1275-1282. DOI:10.1016/j.proeng.2016.07.460.
G. F. Santonastaso, I. Bortone, S. Chianese, A. Erto, A. Di Nardo, M. Di Natale, D. Musmarra: Application of a discontinuous permeable adsorptive barrier for aquifer remediation. A comparison with a continuous adsorptive barrier. Desalination and Water Treatment, 12/2015, DOI:10.1080/19443994.2015.1130921.
Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Dino Musmarra, Giovanni Santonastaso, Francesco Tuccinardi, Giancarlo Zaccone: Software for partitioning and protecting a water supply network. Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems 12/2015; 33(1), DOI:10.1080/10286608.2015.1124867.
Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Carlo Giudicianni, Dino Musmarra, Giovanni Francesco Santonastaso, Antonietta Simone: Water Distribution System Clustering and Partitioning Based on Social Network Algorithms. Procedia Engineering 09/2015; 119(1):196-205. DOI:10.1016/j.proeng.2015.08.876.
Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Dino Musmarra, Giovanni Francesco Santonastaso, Velitchko Tzatchkov, Victor Hugo Alcocer-Yamanaka: Dual-use value of network partitioning for water system management and protection from malicious contamination. Journal of Hydroinformatics 12/2014; 17(3), DOI:10.2166/hydro.2014.014.
A. Di Nardo, M. Di Natale, G. F. Santonastaso, V. Tzatchkov, V. H. Alcocer Yamanaka: Divide and Conquer Partitioning Techniques for Smart Water Networks. Procedia Engineering 12/2014; 89:1176-1183. DOI:10.1016/j.proeng.2014.11.247.
A. Di Nardo, M. Di Natale, G. F. Santonastaso, V. G. Tzatchkov, V. H. Alcocer-Yamanaka: Performance indices for water network partitioning and sectorization. Water Science & Technology: Water Supply 12/2014; 15(3), DOI:10.2166/ws.2014.132.
Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Giovanni Francesco Santonastaso: A comparison between different techniques for water network sectorization. Water Science & Technology: Water Supply 12/2014; 14(6):961-970. DOI:10.2166/ws.2014.046.
Imma Bortone, Alessandro Erto, Giovanni Francesco Santonastaso, Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Dino Musmarra: Design of Permeable Adsorptive Barriers (PABs) for groundwater remediation by COMSOL Multi-physics simulations. Desalination and Water Treatment 09/2014; 55(12), DOI:10.1080/19443994.2014.957931.
Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Corrado Gisonni, Michele Iervolino: A Genetic Algorithm for demand pattern and leakage estimation in a water distribution network. Journal of Water Supply: Research and Technology - AQUA 06/2014; 64(1), DOI:10.2166/aqua.2014.004.
Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Roberto Greco, Giovanni Francesco Santonastaso: Ant Algorithm for Smart Water Network Partitioning. Procedia Engineering 04/2014; 70:525-534. DOI:10.1016/j.proeng.2014.02.058.
Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Giovanni Francesco Santonastaso, Salvatore Venticinque: An Automated Tool for Smart Water Network Partitioning. Water Resources Management 08/2013; 27(13), DOI:10.1007/s11269-013-0421-1.
Greco R., Di Nardo A., Santonastaso G. F.: Resilience and entropy as indices of robustness of water distribution networks. Journal of Hydroinformatics 07/2012; 14(3):761-771. DOI:10.2166/hydro.2012.037.
Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale: A heuristic design support methodology based on graph theory for district metering of water supply networks. Engineering Optimization 02/2011; 43:193-211. DOI:10.1080/03052151003789858.
A. Erto, A. Lancia, I. Bortone, A. Di Nardo, M. Di Natale, D. Musmarra: A procedure to design a Permeable Adsorptive Barrier (PAB) for contaminated groundwater remediation. Journal of Environmental Management 01/2011; 92(1):23-30. DOI:10.1016/j.jenvman.2010.07.044.
CASCETTA F., DI NARDO A., DI NATALE M.: The districting of water distribution networks. 01/2005; 3:18-23.
CAVALLO A., DI NARDO A., DI NATALE M.: Fuzzy Control of Artificial Reservoirs. WSEAS Transactions on Systems 01/2003; 4(2):1118-1124.
Conference Proceedings
Di Nardo A., Di Natale M. (2017). Criteria for districting water distribution networks. Proceedings of the XXXVIII edition, 21–24 June 2017. Edibios, Cosenza.
Bortone I., Chianese S., Di Nardo A., Erto A., Musmarra D., Ottobrino V., Karatza D., Santonastaso G. F. (2017). Optimal design of Adsorptive Barrier (PAB-D) for groundwater remediation in multiple aromatic hydrocarbon contamination. Proceeding of the Sixth International Conference on Environmental Management, Engineering, Planning and Economics (CEMEPE) and SECOTOX Conference.
Santonastaso G. F., Bortone I., Chianese S., Di Natale M., Di Nardo A., Erto A., Musmarra D. (2017). A smart optimization methodology of the pumping phase of a pump and treat system for groundwater remediation. Proceeding of the Sixth International Conference on Environmental Management, Engineering, Planning and Economics (CEMEPE) and SECOTOX Conference.
G. F. Santonastaso, I. Bortone, S. Chianese, A. Di Nardo, M. Di Natale, A. Erto, D. Karatza, D. Musmarra: Discontinuous Permeable Adsorptive Barrier design and cost analysis: a methodological approach to optimisation. PREXIII - 13th International Conference on Protection and Restoration of the Environment; 07/2016.
Armando Di Nardo et al.: New Perspectives for Smart Water Network monitoring, partitioning and protection with innovative On-line Measuring Sensors. E-proceedings of the 36th IAHR World Congress; 06/2015.
A. Di Nardo, G. F. Santonastaso, R. Battaglia, D. Musmarra, F. P. Tuccinardi, F. Castaldo, B. Della Ventura, M. Iervolino, R. Velotta: Smart identification system of surface water contamination by an innovative biosensor network. CEMEPE - 5th International Conference on Environmental Management, Engineering, Planning and Economics; 06/2015.
A. Di Nardo, M. Di Natale, G. F. Santonastaso, D. Musmarra, F. P. Tuccinardi, G. Zaccone: SWANP 2.0: advanced tool for Smart Water Network Partitioning and Protection. Water Ideas 2014, Bologna, Italy; 10/2014.
Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Dino Musmarra, Giovanni Francesco Santonastaso, V. Tzatchkov, V. H. Alcocer Yamanaka: Optimal design of network partitioning for water distribution system protection from intentional contamination. 11th International Conference on Hydroinformatics, New York, USA; 08/2014.
Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale, Giovanni Francesco Santonastaso, Francesco Tuccinardi, Giancarlo Zaccone: SWANP: software for automatic Smart Water Network Partitioning. iEMSs 7th International Congress on Environmental Modeling and Software, San Diego, California, USA; 06/2014.
A. Di Nardo, M. Di Natale, R. Greco, G. F. Santonastaso: Heuristic optimization methods for Smart Water Network Partitioning. Proceedings of OPT-i 2014, Kos Island, Greece; 06/2014.
Alberto Cavallo, Armando Di Nardo, Michele Di Natale: An Automatic Smart Decision and Control System for Reservoir Management Based on Fuzzy Logic. 10th International Conference on Hydroinformatics, Hamburg, Germany; 07/2012.
A. Di Nardo, M. Di Natale, G. F. Santonastaso: Identification of isolated water sectors of a water distribution network with a methodology based on graph theory. The aqueduct and drainage networks, Ferrara; 05/2012.
Di Nardo A., Di Natale M., Santonastaso G. F., Tzatchkov V. G., Alcocer-Yamanaka V. H.: Water Network Sectorization based on genetic algorithm and minimum dissipated power paths. Proceedings of WaterLossEurope 2012.
Di Nardo A., Di Natale M., Greco R., Santonastaso G. F.: Synthetic indices for the districting of a water distribution network. Proceedings of the XXXIII Conference on Hydraulics and Hydraulic Constructions; 01/2012.
Di Nardo A., Di Natale M., Santonastaso G. F., Venticinque S.: Divide and conquer: an automatic system for partitioning Smart Water Networks. Proceedings of the XXXIII Conference on Hydraulics and Hydraulic Constructions; 01/2012.
Di Nardo A., Di Natale M.: A Design Support Methodology for District Metering of Water Supply Networks. Water Distribution Systems Analysis 2010 Proceedings of the 12th International Conference; DOI:10.1061/41203(425)80.
Di Nardo A., Di Natale M., Santonastaso G. F.: A methodology for the districting of a water distribution network based on graph theory. The management of water networks; 01/2011.
Di Nardo A., Greco R., Santonastaso G. F.: Synthetic indices of robustness of water distribution networks. Proceedings of 11th International Conference on Computing and Control for Water Industry; 01/2011.
Di Nardo A., Di Natale M., Guida M., Musmarra D.: Water supply network protection from malicious attacks by sectorization. Proceedings of VI EWRA International Symposium; 01/2011.
Di Nardo A., Di Natale M., Greco R., Santonastaso G. F.: Resilience and Entropy Indices for Water Supply Network Sectorization in District Meter Areas. Proceedings of 9th International Conference on Hydroinformatics; 01/2010.
Di Nardo A., Di Natale M., Greco R., Santonastaso G. F.: On the use of entropy and resilience as indices of the performance of a water network. Proceedings of the XXXII Conference on Hydraulics and Hydraulic Constructions; 01/2010.
Di Nardo A., Di Natale M., Santonastaso G. F.: A heuristic methodology for the districting of a water distribution network. Proceedings of the XXXII Conference on Hydraulics and Hydraulic Constructions; 01/2010.
Di Nardo A., Di Natale M., Ciarmiello M.: Graph Theory As A Tool For Design Of District-Metered Water Supply Networks. Proceedings of 33rd IAHR 2009 Congress; 01/2009.
Di Nardo A., Di Natale M., Gisonni C., Iervolino M., Musmarra D.: Districtization of the water network of the Monterusciello 2 district in Pozzuoli: the European Hydranet project and the creation of the pilot site. Proceedings of the Third Seminar on "Leak detection and management of aqueduct networks"; 01/2008.
A. Cavallo, A. Di Nardo, M. Di Natale: A fuzzy decision support system for a hydraulic application. Fuzzy Systems Conference, FUZZ-IEEE 2007; DOI:10.1109/FUZZY.2007.4295458.
Cascetta F., Di Nardo A., Di Natale M., Gisonni C., Greco R.: A methodology for the districting of a water distribution network: the case of Villaricca (NA). Proceedings of the Second Seminar on "Leak detection and management of aqueduct networks"; 01/2006.
Cavallo A., Di Nardo A., Di Natale M.: Optimal fuzzy decision strategies for water reservoir management. Proceedings of the XXIX Conference on Hydraulics and Hydraulic Constructions; 01/2004.
Cavallo A., Di Nardo A., Di Natale M.: Management of an artificial reservoir using a fuzzy control strategy. Proceedings of the XXVIII Conference on Hydraulics and Hydraulic Constructions; 01/2002.
Doctoral thesis
Di Nardo, A., Fuzzy optimal decision and control strategies for the automatic management of an artificial reservoir in ordinary and drought conditions, Aversa, 2004.
The updated list of publications is available at the following links: