Arguably one of the most critical components of the infrastructure necessary for the health and well-being of civilization, there will always be a need to repair, improve, and construct new Water Distribution Systems. The Riley team members have extensive expertise from multiple backgrounds devoted to this particular area of civil engineering, a fact that separates us from most other civil engineering firms. From the water’s source, all the way to its final destination, Riley can provide design and analysis services for any potable or non-potable water distribution system. 

  • Groundwater Wells 
  • Pipe Network Modeling 
  • Large Scale Transmission Systems 
  • Neighborhood Distribution Networks  
  • Pump Stations 
  • Water Storage Facilities 
  • Water Quality Analyses 
  • Cost Optimization 
  • Irrigation Systems 

For water distribution system services, Riley has assembled a highly specialized team of engineers consisting of in-house staff and senior independent expert water engineers that can execute any task from pre-planning to final design to construction support. Our passion for water distribution systems emanates from our founder, who specializes in water distribution system design and studied advanced topics during his civil engineering Ph.D. studies.   

Our staff is skilled in water distribution system design software such as EPANET, WaterGEMs, and WaterCAD. In addition to the commercially available design software, Riley has in-house proprietary water distribution system design tools developed by Riley staff. These tools allow us to do more in less time, bringing value and savings to our clients. With these tools, we are more efficient in assessing a wide range of alternatives, pipe materials, design options, and pipeline routes. This gives us the capability to make more informed and confident decisions earlier in the planning process than our competitors. Our tools are fully customizable to be adjusted to project-specific conditions.   

Riley developed WaterCOSTE, a proprietary cost model that estimates the installed price of water pipelines using a “bottom-up” cost building approach that is often employed by contractors and construction estimators when appraising or bidding a project. The bottom-up pricing approach accounts for all the construction processes and costs necessary for the installation of a water pipe, including: construction material procurement (pipe, embedment material, construction water, and material delivery costs), heavy equipment machinery costs, labor costs and the time required to perform the job. WaterCOSTE can provide on-the-fly estimates for the installed pricing for various pipe materials, pressure classes, and diameters up to 72-inches under a wide range of bury and embedment conditions. Currently, WaterCOSTE has embedded modules for estimating installed pricing for high density polyethylene (HDPE), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), ductile iron and steel water pipe.  
Riley developed WaterTRANS, a proprietary custom hydraulic modeling software specific to designing water transmission systems. It greatly improves design efficiency (reducing design time) by automatically locating pumps and pressure regulators in branched transmission systems while also recognizing cost differences in pipe pressure classes. WaterTRANS can be paired with a genetic algorithm to find least cost system designs that consider operation and maintenance costs. Currently, there is no other software that can perform such a task.