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The 2013 Boston Marathon attack demonstrated the complexity of real-time response to such occurrences. The procedures used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at the Boston event to cluster and mitigate the event consequences inspired the development of a method for real-time response to contamination intrusion events in water distribution systems. Similar to the Boston attack, in the event of water contamination events, the shortage of real-time data, coupled with uncertainties in network topology, water consumption, and the event characteristics, set the ground for the need for a real-time response strategy. A methodology that divides the network into separate monitored zones or clusters, often referred to as district metered areas (DMAs), is widely used to cope with water-related problems such as leakage reduction or pressure control. In this study, a water-quality-related criterion called infection delay time (IDT) was introduced to dynamically cluster the network in case of a contamination event. The IDT parameter was combined with the available system resources to meet water quality goals. A coupled DMA-IDT method was developed for real-time response to contamination events. The setup of the DMA-IDT is described and demonstrated on water distribution systems of various complexities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]