Micropolis: A Virtual City for Water Distribution System Research Applications

Introduction:  For obvious reasons, no city wishes to have its infrastructure data and vulnerabilities to malicious attack published in public fora, even for research purposes.  This is especially true for water distribution systems, an infrastructure that extends literally into citizens' most intimate lives.  Yet, a need exists in the research community for realistic, detailed testbeds with which to evaluate various research ideas and allow common bases of comparison.  The Micropolis "virtual city" has been designed as a first entry into an intended library of these testbeds.  It is a digitally mapped small city complete with infrastructure information including: a complete water system, roads, land parcels, buildings, and topogaphy.  It can easily be extended to include other valuable types of information such as electrical infrastructure and demography. 

Micropolis version 1 is now available

Downloads available:   Basic GIS files (compressed as a zip file)
                                   EPANet model (includes backdrop image, compressed as a zip file)
                                   Notes on version 1 (released 5/14/07)

This paper was presented at the ASCE/EWRI 2007 World Water and Environmental Resources Congress.  It would make a suitable citation for anyone wishing to use Micropolis:

Brumbelow, K., J. Torres, S. Guikema, E. Bristow, and L. Kanta. 2007. Virtual cities for water distribution and infrastructure system research. Proc. World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2007: Restoring Our Natural Habitat, ASCE, Reston, VA.

Parts of the work presented on this page have been produced with the support of the National Science Foundation (Infrastructure Management and Hazards Response Program) under Grant No. CMS-0600448.