Accurate estimation of operation status of a water distribution system is essential to health monitoring and diagnosis of the water distribution system

while the water pressure is the most important indicator of the operation status.This study proposes a method

combination of EMD（Empirical Mode Decomposition） method and AR model

for online forecast of the pressure at monitoring stations in a water distribution system.The effectiveness of the method is verified by the comparison between the forecasting of the pressure in a water distribution system and the monitoring data.This study provides an effective way for online health monitoring and diagnosis of a water distribution system.