  This paper focuses on the optimal sensor placement problem for the
identification of pipe failure locations in large-scale urban water systems.
The problem involves selecting the minimum number of sensors such that every
pipe failure can be uniquely localized. This problem can be viewed as a minimum
test cover (MTC) problem, which is NP-hard. We consider two approaches to
obtain approximate solutions to this problem. In the first approach, we
transform the MTC problem to a minimum set cover (MSC) problem and use the
greedy algorithm that exploits the submodularity property of the MSC problem to
compute the solution to the MTC problem. In the second approach, we develop a
new \textit{augmented greedy} algorithm for solving the MTC problem. This
approach does not require the transformation of the MTC to MSC. Our augmented
greedy algorithm provides in a significant computational improvement while
guaranteeing the same approximation ratio as the first approach. We propose
several metrics to evaluate the performance of the sensor placement designs.
Finally, we present detailed computational experiments for a number of real
water distribution networks.
