Discussion: Papers 4–7

MR SAMUELS and MR KERR (Paper 7) The study which has been used to illustrate the disaggregate method of forecasting water demands was carried out for the Blantyre Water Board. Blantyre, which is the commercial centre of Malawi, had until 1960 obtained its water supplies from local reservoirs which have a reliable yield of only 0.5 million gallons/day. Since that time it has been necessary to develop facilities to provide supplies from the Shire River through a 22 mile long pipeline with a static lift of 2550 ft. Due to the high capital and operating costs of such a system, universal metering is absolutely essential in Blantyre to ensure optimum allocation of supplies and to avoid waste. As a result Blantyre has about 10 OOO m of all sizes and losses, expressed as the difference between bulk meter readings at the point of supply to the distribution system and the aggregate of individual meter connections, averaged between 10% and 15%.