SCADA and Modeling in Water Management
I. Stoian, D. Capatina, S. Ignat, O. Ghiran
SC IPA SA Cluj
Cluj-Napoca, Romania
ipacluj@automation.ro
Abstract - In the field of water management it operate with
hydrologic, hydraulic models, and the river basin GIS
component, that take into account the real-time measured
parameters, and climate prognosis. The SCADA system
associated to a river basin, by acquired historical data,
constitutes the support for models calibration and validation, by
their training on representative data sets, with the purpose of
establishing model associated parameters. But not all acquired
data from sensors is qualified for interaction with the models.
These must pass through filtering, compensation, plausibility
processes. The data stored in databases complies with these
requirements, being validated when loaded into historical
databases or by post-processing.
For managing some dynamic conditions, alerts or certain
extreme conditions – floods or prolonged drought – the models
have to be shifted during running, depending on instant values of
process parameters – run-time models. The selection of the most
suitable model for on-line erroneous data may result in
disastrous results. Therefore, at the level of on-line data there is
required rapid checking, involving specialized processors or
demanding software applications, running on parallel threads.
Presented paper achieves SCADA data analysis with the
purpose of make them compatible with predictive models, for
ensuring of decisional support mechanisms, that sustain
proactive measures, by proposing o set of solutions regarding
their efficient usage.
Keywords - SCADA data plausability, models and run-time
models, virtual valid data base
I. INTRODUCTION
Water resource structure is very complex, and includes
natural and man-made river basins and reservoirs and
associated infrastructure. Dedicated automation systems have
evolved and expanded in order to manage water resources for:
energy production, water supply, distribution, treatment,
pollution monitoring, irrigation, navigation, etc.
The SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition)
system manages and controls in real time various
infrastructures (industrial manufacturing, public facilities/
utilities as water distribution, weather forecast , hydrological
and meteorological units deployed over very large geographic
areas as river basins, hydropower plants, etc.). The main
SCADA systems components are: sensors/ transducers,
measuring of specific system parameters and investigate status
of actuators used to control the process; RTUs (Remote
Terminal Units) /or PLCs (Programmable logic controllers),
978-1-4799-3732-5/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE
converting sensor signals to digital data and sending digital
data to a central control/dispatching unit; Central
control/dispatching station where system operators have access
through HMI (human machine interface) to all the information
gathered by the distributed RTUs, and to the information
provided by other related by nature information stations
(hydrological, meteorological information, geographical
infrastructure surveillance); communication infrastructure (data
transmission under specific secure protocols) [1].
The SCADA system associated with a river basin offer
information support for the management of water resources,
providing software modules for optimal dispatching of water
on rivers, drains, sewers and reservoirs, remote control of the
dam spillways, on line visualization of the measurement
parameters. This SCADA system enable remotely operating
regarding: the view of real-time measurements (the level of
water in rivers, polders and reservoirs) and operation of
spillways and bottom gates. Some SCADA options allowed the
dispatching unit to receive sound alarms when a fault within a
water supply system is identified. Other facilities are regarding
the storage in the historical data based of the temporal variables
evolution in the system such as water levels, flows,
precipitation, humidity, temperatures, status information.
The environmental influence of lakes and reservoirs the
water used in different domains could be improved by means
of skillful optimization of water reservoir management based
also modeling process. The model facilitates the management
of risk during the flood period and recommends options of
discharge and water level control in the river basin
geographical area [2].
The usage of SCADA infrastructures in water domain
require new service and models, allowing on-demand
provisioning of complex applications and group-oriented
infrastructure services, across multiple suppliers.
II. SCADA DATA ANALYSIS
The type of SCADA data belong into one of the following
categories: analog data, digital data, pulse data, status bits or
flags. These data are stored in records in the historical data
bases in pair structures – date, time. When these data are used
for hydrologic and hydraulic modeling, they require
verification and careful processing selection in order to
maintain their usefulness. Their usage without this filtering
process is not acceptable and recommended.
 The communication channels of SCADA system deployed
over large geographical areas are relatively slow because their
support is radio, telephone lines or wired at low
communication rate. SCADA data from different devices in the
field are not collected continuously because the data request is
in polling and/or incidentally interruption can occurred. Also
some sensors can make problems (supply problems, range
exceeding) and their measurement value is not plausible. In
these conditions it is common for a SCADA system to display
analog data average values instead of instantaneous ones.
The SCADA data loaded in relational databases are
obtained from the three major ways:
The central host computer asks for the field devices data in
polling process;
With periodic rate the field devices send data to the central
host;
Operator related and manual set on databases.
In all ways there is an inconvenient that the request receiver
could be involved in other operation and it reject the request
causing a lost of data in the acquisition process.
SCADA systems exchange data with external applications
by exported them in various forms: ASCII text, spreadsheet
file using ODBC (Open Database Connectivity), proprietary
forms package.
When the SCADA data, are used in the modeling process it
must:
- perform an overview of their records,
- analyze data details in order to identify and solve timing
problems, missing data,
- analyze the plausibility of data,
- organize the information into needed groups,
- include into separate strings the measured data with their
time-stamp and the processed data (ex: averaged values,
interpolated values, computed values),
- generate from the SCADA measures databases an ‘integral
data set’ for the model calibration/validation.
SCADA data are recorded in distributed relational
databases having large dimensions. Distributed databases
structure can not be direct utilized for modeling process. For
model calibration and validation must be selected from
historical databases sensitive measures sets for modeled
phenomena (context reasoning data spreadsheet).
By CAP theorem, Brewer asserts that for distributed
databases it is impossible to provide simultaneously all three of
the next guarantees: consistency, availability and partition
tolerance and get an acceptable latency [3].
Consistency means that only valid data should be stored to
the database. All the clients who access database are able to see
the same data, even if there are concurrent updates.
Availability means that reading and writing operation
always succeed. Database availability minimizes downtime by
detecting application failures in ‘real-time’. All clients of
databases can access one version of the data.
Partition tolerance means the splitting of database over
multiple servers. Guaranteed properties are maintained even
when network failures prevent some machines from
communicating with others.
“Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability (ACID) is a
set of properties that guarantee that database transactions are
processed reliably” [4]. No database that fails to meet any of
these four ACID model goals can be considered reliable.
When multiple users access the database at same time the
transaction in database is required for its data protection and
keeping their consistency.
When the data are filtered and plausible they have to be
saved from power outage or other threats. For this is reasonable
to save the data related to transaction in different places.
These concepts employ that direct exploitation of the
databases for modeling is unsuitable, although SCADA data
integrity is achieved.
Another important feature of the data is their integrity.
That means the assurance and maintenance of the consistency
and accuracy over their life cycle in the storage process.
There are two components envisaged in data integrity:
• Physical integrity refers to correctly fetching and storing of
data.
• Logical integrity includes data plausibility.
Data integrity includes check and correction for
invalid data, based on set of rules defining the relation between
data.
The causes of errors in data obtained from SCADA are:
- system failure - malfunctions of: (i)measurement devices;
(ii)RTU or PLC; (iii)communication devices and channels;
(iv)central host computer; (v)data base servers;
- operational schedule overlapping;
- data alteration due: (i)to compression/decompression
process; (ii)to incomplete conversion of the measured
value; (iii)transducer over range;
- incorrect time-stamping of the measure data.
A. Data Compression and Timming Problems:
We have to consider that the users of the data do not always
understand the particular mechanisms by which the data have
been collected and do not take this into account when
analyzing the data [5].
The transmission and the storage of the data use a
compression mechanism. The actual field variable transmitted
with a compression process can lose their trend evolution and
sometimes not reproduce their behavior.
Another possible source of errors in SCADA trends are the
timing problems. For this reason SCADA system may
introduce the following mechanism:
• A ‘back-filling’ mechanism, in the case of an unsolicited
data transfer. Automatic data historian database product
software have to be compatible with this mechanism;
• Optimized methods for the communication bandwidth and
field-based data memory, thus displayed trend to be
accurate;
• Synchronize timing: temporal error related to the fact that
events and their time stamps may not correspond with the
event time’s occurrences in the field.
B. Missing Data Problems
Missing data in SCADA information can be caused by
many factors, such as:
• Sensors or network of sensors failures,
• Measurement instrumentation failures,
• Communication failures between the RTU and the
dispatching computer,
• Temporary SCADA software glitches.
Sensors or network of sensors problems consist in:
- Unknown elevations of sensor - If the elevation of the
sensor is unknown (or only roughly known), SCADA
system sensors measurement could be inaccurate.
- Critical to scalability of sensor networks quality are the
next metrics: (i)effective bandwidth; (ii)loss rate;
(iii)average network bandwidth.
Scalability enables a high spatial density network, which
makes it possible to identify nodes with greater accuracy.
As emerging sensor networks sizes and densities grow,
there are requested appropriate algorithms for collecting
information in these networks. In order to characterize and
identify the most critical questions issued in the wide-scale
deployment of sensor networks, have to be analyzed the
scalability of these algorithms. This is achieved by
examining the scalability behavior of routing and
compression algorithms as the number of nodes in a sensor
network grow.
Scalability analysis is focused on the next aspects of a
sensor network: (i)its routing algorithm, which decides the
communication patterns between nodes; (ii)its method of
data aggregation and compression [6].
- Scaling sensor networks up related to the number of nodes
and energy efficiency: (i)how to scale up the number of
nodes so as to get appropriate coverage of an interest zone;
(ii)how to scale down the energy spending per node, in
order to diminish energy consumption.
- Aggregation permits multiple packets to be joined into a
single packet; compression allows the data in a packet to
be condensed in size. Per-node aggregation and
compression techniques decrease the transmission cost of
data by diminishing the amount of data at the cost of
additional computation.
- Standard multihop wireless networking paradigms
basically do not scale for data gathering from such sensor
nets.
- While the location of significant events is a critical
element of the information we wish to gather, nodes in a
huge random deployment may not identify their own
positions, given that positioning techniques like GPS may
be unavailable (due to cost or environment).
Instrumentation-related problems include:
- Inaccurate data reading - it can results from an uncalibrated
equipment, from some interference of signal in the inputs to
the local level processor units or by misinterpretation by
SCADA software [5];
- Data spikes in readings which means fluctuations or
measurement limits exceeded (result from hydraulic
transient regimes appeared when the pump or valve change
operational mode);
- Inadequate instrument range (if the measurement duration
of the field instruments is not adequate, the measured value
can not be stable and the recorded values exceed the range
of the device).
- Field instrumentation failure usually caused by a drift in the
calibration or other improper maintenance of the field
device;
- Insufficient resolution of the field device used in data
acquisition. Problem is avoided by RTUs via IEEE floating
point format.
Communication-related problems include:
- Failures of the communication systems (between
dispatching level and local level or different RTU’s
interconnected at local level) are identified by physical gaps
in acquired and recorded data;
- Noise in the communication system. This can be identified
by comparison with data collected directly from field long-
term in previous periods, or by statistical filtering
techniques.
Temporary SCADA software glitches
- Could be caused by the failures above mentioned. They
may appear due to malwares, viruses or un-updated
software packages.
In figure 1 there are presented user interfaces of SCADA
systems which ensure the operator visibility on historical
acquired data with different errors. The SCADA applications
are developed by the authors of the paper on various software
packages: LabWindows/CVI, Vijeo Citect and LabView.
III. MODELS IN WATER MANAGEMENT DOMAIN
Models generally make assumptions about real world
processes in order to predict the behavior of systems under
certain conditions but with inherent inaccuracies for any real
systems [7].
 In water resources hydrologic and hydraulic modeling
must be examined issues with scaling, calibration and
Data verification, and the simplification of parameters against over-
spike
parameterization. A management issue faced by water
management agencies is how to improve the availability and
usefulness of information. An efficient management and
planning necessitate an integrated decision support system
(DSS) based on advances in modeling and geographic
information system (GIS) technologies [7].
The DSS allows the generation of solutions in floods and
droughts cases those have a deterministic nature, providing
solutions for problems that are based on unreliable or
Missing Missing incomplete data. This computer software evolves comparing
data data with the decision-making ability of a human expert. It is
composed by three parts, the inference engine, the knowledge
base, and a dialog interface to communicate with users. The
DSS is calculating the optimal allocation of the water
resources in both cases, elaborating a generally applicable
solution for extreme river flow conditions.
The used technology is a Multiple Input - Multiple Output
Distributed Control System acting predictive based on the
information of the SCADA and with the optimal targets
imposed by DSS simultaneously on all dams, gates and
Data spillways of the polders and irrigation channels through
spike
appropriate actuating devices. It comprises an advanced
control algorithm based on the distributed model predictive
control together with the sensors and the actuators needed to
maintain the controlled variables to their set points. The
technology contains a number of local model predictive
controllers which have to communicate between them in real
time for prediction and prevention of eventual floods and
droughts damages.
Different types of mathematical models either considered
Missing standards in hydrologic modeling or specially developed by
data
our project team (a mathematical model based on artificial
neural network for small basins) are used for the evaluation of
the hydrologic inputs. The hydrologic inputs will be run
through the system of reservoirs and river stretches in order to:
establish operating rules for the reservoirs and test the system
functionality for different meteorological and hydrologic
inputs. The operating rules of the spillways are obtained by
optimization, both locally at the level of each reservoir and at
the level of the whole system by taking into account the
following constraints: minimum and maximum volume in the
reservoirs, maximum water depth of the spillways, the transfer
capacity of the river bed downstream each reservoir, the
request for avoiding discharge pulses in downstream
reservoirs. Genetic algorithms will be used in the optimization
process for deriving the optimal operational strategy.
During drought periods the main problem is the water
allocation between reservoirs and water users. The DSS will
contain all data describing climatic characteristics of the water
catchment, soil characteristics, physiological characteristics of
Missing
data the crops, the continuous estimation of the water demands for
agriculture and other water users as well as the availability of
the water resources, etc. The Water Management System will
be modeled by an arcs-nodes network. The goal is to realize
Fig. 1. Errors detected in data aquired in SCADA System the optimal water distribution within system both on long-term
and on short-term that minimizes the economic losses of not interval selection, ►appropriate data set selection, ►data
meeting water demands. Long-term optimization is achieved conditioning to obtain an ‘integral data set’ specific for
by establishing reservoir operation rules of dispatcher type modeled phenomena. As it is depicted in fig.2 the databases
that imply the reservoir volume zoning. Short-term postprocessor module extracts event specific data structures
optimization is attained during each time interval and consists appropriate for the calibration and validation of each model
in a convenient distribution of water between reservoirs and before their inclusion in model database.
water users by minimizing the violation of the constraints.
The mathematical model will be related to the evaluation
of the hydrologic boundary conditions, followed by hydraulic
simulations combined with the optimal and predictive control
methods for the identification of the best operation strategies
of the cascade of reservoirs and polders. The models will be
applied for the improvement of the flood and drought
protection in a river basin, where a cascade of reservoirs
already exists and to demonstrate the efficiency of the
automatic intervention on the river/channel flows.
The system provides a new set of functions to be
implemented on the SCADA system for flooding and drought
control. In order to implement the decision support mechanism
an intelligent distributed decision support will be created,
having an adapted management structure suitable to the
Fig. 2. SCADA database processing for modeling calibration/validation
monitoring and control RTU entities distributed on the wide
river basin area, having multi objective decision optimization The DB postprocessor – modeling data extractor is service
capabilities. These mechanisms will be implemented as an type software, which act when the modeler calls it. It has
integrated frame decision support based on individual communication interfaces (HMI) that allow the modeler to
intelligent cooperative decision support, which insures one by specify the time periods, the specific data, and the model
one interaction and interaction with a moderator in order to which is to be calibrated and validated. The service verifies
offer a balanced solution in certain practical situations. the consistency, and the availability of needed data, according
with extended form of CAP theorem related to distributed
IV. SCADA DATA USAGE IN MODELING PROCCESS systems. The requested data are displayed to the modeler on
“SCADA is a great system for data automation and graphic or tabular form, and if there is an ‘integral data set’,
collection, but it cannot currently extend beyond these the model is attacked with this input data set, in order to be
applications to complex modeling and mapping”[7], calibrated and validated. If the needed input parameters
contradicted by the further evolution of SCADA systems, at present data missing, the service tries to solve it by
least considering their degree of generalization. But like was interpolation or modeler manual data input.
depicted in this paper during chapter 2, data resulting from
SCADA systems, can sometimes have problems which make
it unsuitable for the use in modeling processes. Present paper
proposes a series of concrete solutions for the use of the data
resulting from SCADA systems acquisitions, as support for
the development of different predictive hydrologic/hydraulic
models, respectively to their calibration, and then the
integration in a decisional support system, which is aimed at
ensuring a proactive behavior destined to emergency situations
- floods or persistent drought.
The SCADA system associated to a river basin, by
acquired historical data, constitutes the support for models
calibration and validation, by their training on representative
‘integral data sets’, with the purpose of establishing model
associated parameters for their storage in the specific Models
database. But not all acquired data from sensors are qualified
for interaction with the models. These must pass through:
►filtering, ►compensation, ►plausibility processes[8]. The
date stored in relational databases, complies with these
requirements, have the integrity validated in the process of
storage into databases.
For usage in modeling process, data loaded from relational
Fig. 3. On-line data processing for adaptive model for DSS
databases of the SCADA system will be processed: ►time
 For managing some dynamic conditions, alerts or certain
extreme conditions – floods or prolonged drought – the
models have to be shifted during running, depending on
instant values of process parameters – adaptive run-time
models. The selection of the most suitable model for on-line
erroneous data may result in disastrous results. Therefore, at
the level of on-line data there is required rapid checking,
involving specialized processors or demanding software
applications, running on parallel threads. The real time data
flow from the sensor level to the decision support system,
include a real-time data processor that extract data sequences
needed as input for the context reasoning model (fig.3). The
real-time data processor is service type software that runs in
an automatic manner. This component triggers the on-line
sensors measurements, and by different pre-defined thresholds
selects the model which must be run for making decisions
process. Related to input data for the run model the service
functionalities are the same (the consistency, and the
availability testing), but on the on-line data, and their trends
stored in memory locations. In this manner it is obtained input
data for model, which is stored in real-time DB. The control
driven module obtains the model output data and after
simulation decides if the selected model is the appropriate one
or must be changed. Based on model output data from the
rules and knowledge of DSS, the dispatching operator receives
prognosis and a set of suggested actions for better critical
event mitigation.
The real-time data processor verifies the data validity:
a) Offering detection of sensor data errors, by continuous
automatic analysis, involving techniques software agents’
network analysis;
b) SCADA system acquired data are useful to indicate when
the sensors are not correctly operating and need calibration.
The comparison between the data from a sensor and an
expected value indicate the necessity of the calibration process;
c) When sensor fails the service indicate a sensor with similar
functionalities (redundant) if in the system exists one. In water
management there are many SCADA system owners that can
collaborate in a federative environment, and ‘change’ sensors
with similar functions than one of them is unavailable [8].
Regarding the sensor network here are same considerations
towards his scalability. For moderate scale sensor nets (such
as those of the dams of reservoirs) with a conventional
multihop architecture, if a source may randomly select its
destination in a huge network, then the throughput per node
scales down with the network size. In order to perform a given
sensing task related to the environment sensors often have to
collaborate, it is significant to determine the utility of a remote
sensor’s data in conserving power due to the communication
requirement. The question is centered on how to query sensors
dynamically and route data in a network, such as to maximize
information gain, whilst minimizing latency and bandwidth
consumption [9]. Problems regarding “sensing optimization”
and “power optimization” must be treated in correlation with
the data set importance and its validity for modeling. So, in
this phase, the data robustness is more important than the
minimizing of the consume and the optimization of the
communication networks. This situation is different from the
current exploitation in sensor networks.
When the real time data processor detects data missing in
memory buffers it interpolates between SCADA values to
estimate parameters at acquisition time rate (using averaging
or interpolating data).
V. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
Present paper proposes a series of concrete solutions for the
use of the data resulting from SCADA systems acquisitions, as
support for the development of different predictive
hydrologic/hydraulic models and then the integration in a
decisional support system. For usage in modeling process, data
loaded from relational databases of the SCADA system are
processed in time interval selection, appropriate data set
selection, data conditioning to obtain an ‘integral data set’
specific for modeled phenomena. The real time data flow from
the sensor level to the decision support system, include a real-
time data processor that extract data sequences needed as input
for the context reasoning model. For the future work is need to
analyze in practice the results of the applied models and how
the SCADA delivered data are useful, and to apply this method
in other area in which SCADA offer a big set of data.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian
National Authority for Scientific Research, CNDI– UEFISCDI,
project number PN-II-PT-PCCA-2011-3.2-0344 - “Pro-active
operation of cascade reservoirs in extreme conditions (floods
and droughts) using a Comprehensive Decision Support
Systems (CDSS). Case study: Jijia catchment”.
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