The devices used to monitor and control the water supply network are transforming the system from physical to cyber-physical, in order to increase the reliability and controllability, but at the same moment, these technologies expose the system to cyber threats. The increasing number of cyber-physical attacks to the water supply systems makes necessary a frequent and accurate way to communicate anomalies.
Considering during the work day analysts are occupied in many mansions which prevent them from focusing their attention on the screen visualisations, the project proposes a data sonification approach to express the first level of information, useful to monitor the status of the system. The literature highlights how useful could be the sound in case of time variables, patterns, different kinds and big amount of data; all those features are included in this context. The sound allows to precede and eventually facilitate the reading of the visualisations, without substituting them.
The sonification describes the system status, calculating how the data reported from sensors positioned on the network is different from the prediction described by an algorithm (developed by Galelli and Taormina) that does not consider any possible irregularity.
An experiment on a limited sample of potential users made possible to test the efficiency of the different prototype, gathering useful information for a future implementation. The first assumption seems to be confirmed: the testers expressed positive feedback. They would be willing to use the prototype in their real work activity. The majority of the users understood the main information expressed by the sound. Some problems emerged during the recognition of the second level of meaning, but this limit could be overcome with more training, as suggested by the testers.
