**3. Case Study**

The methodology described above was tested on the WDN of Parete [54], which is a small town located in a densely populated area to the south of Caserta (Italy), with population of 11,150 inhabitants. This WDN has 182 demanding nodes (with ground elevations ranging from 53 m a.s.l. to 79 m a.s.l.), 282 pipes and 2 sources with fixed head of 110 m a.s.l. A uniform desired pressure head *hdes* = 19 m was assumed for the demanding nodes, coming from the sum of the maximum building height in the town, which is 9 m in Parete, and 10 m, as prescribed by the Italian guidelines. Reference was made to the day of maximum consumption in the year when the total nodal demand ranges from 7.6 L/s at nighttime to 77.2 L/s in the morning and midday peaks, with an average value of 36.3 L/s. The leakage volume of the networks in the day of maximum consumption adds up to 930 m3 (about 23% of the total outflow from the sources). The number of users connected to each WDN node was derived based on its average nodal demand.
