When designing a water distribution system, meeting the needs of the people for the least cost is crucial. These costs consist of many parts, primarily the initial material and construction costs, but also the energy pumping costs over the lifetime of the project. Network modeling was performed here to consider all possible alternatives of supplying users with multiple sources to give designers a simple algorithm for design option selection. Selection was made based on a balance between reliability of water supply and the minimal lifecycle cost. The easy-to-use algorithm, entitled the Balanced Reliability-Lifecycle Algorithm (BRLA), is demonstrated on a real system in a village in Vanuatu.
