Interface entre o QGIS e o EPANET: uma ferramenta Python para criação, simulação e dimensionamento de redes de abastecimento de água

Abstract

Hydraulic models are essential tools for simulating water systems in different scenarios, optimizing the planning and operation of networks with greater efficiency and safety in the management of water resources. This research presents the development of UFC14, a plugin for the free and open source software QGIS, which integrates it with EPANET with the aim of automating the creation of hydraulic models. With UFC14 tools, users can generate models simply and automatically, reducing time and costs compared to the traditional manual method in EPANET and other software, in addition to offering useful guidance. Among its functionalities, the plugin allows the creation and editing of physical and non-physical components of the hydraulic model, the conversion of files between EPANET (.inp) and QGIS (.gpkg) formats, the performance of dynamic and static simulations through the Python module WNTR (Water Network Tool for Resilience) and the dimensioning of networks based on criteria such as Minimum Network Pressure (mca) and Maximum Unit Head Loss (m/km). To use UFC14, two base files are required: a vector or raster layer representing the street layout and a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) raster layer used to obtain the elevations. The plugin was validated using three case studies with different characteristics, allowing a comprehensive evaluation of its functionalities. In all tests, UFC14 demonstrated good performance in generating the hydraulic model (INP file), running simulations, sizing the distribution network and presenting results comparable to those obtained with UFC2.