Development of a Water Infrastructure Knowledge Database

Abstract

This paper presents a methodology for developing a national database, as applied to water infrastructure systems that include both drinking water and wastewater. The database is branded as WATERiD and can be accessed through internet. Water infrastructure in the United States is aging poorly and municipal governments are struggling to find easy access to comprehensive information about achieving sustainability of their water infrastructure such as condition assessment, renewal engineering, subsurface utility engineering, best management practices, and cost of technologies. There are more than 50,000 water/wastewater utilities in the United States and no two utilities are alike. However, the lessons learned by a utility in the application of the commonly available technologies can be used as knowledge by other utilities. Because there was previously no easily accessible platform through which successful experiences and lessons learned could be shared, common mistakes including unnecessary change of orders are frequently repeated in different locations. The WATERiD database is enabling utilities to share their experiences and lessons learned, and is a single-point information center where all the relevant information about water-infrastructure sustainability can be found. To collect lessons learned and utility experience, more than 100 utilities throughout the United States and 30 additional international utilities were contacted. The data from utilities are compiled, taxonomically classified, and uploaded into WATERiD for sharing between the utilities. This paper describes a process for developing the database including database architecture, database-critical functionalities such as upload and categorization, and future development work. Sustaining and building upon the foundational WATERiD resources will continue to take the cooperation of utilities, organizations, and professionals from across the water-infrastructure industry.