Abstract
Physical infrastructureassets are essential to provide a specific service, which may change over time, according to service needs, challenges and life style. 40-100 years old water and wastewater pipes were installed to provide a service ? conveying water for consumption for the former, carrying away storm and sanitary water for the latter - to a given number of customers under assigned external conditions, and were designed according to technologies and rules existing at the time of installation. As the conditions and the population to serve vary over time and during infrastructure lifetime, performance is likely to suffer as the physical condition of the pipes deteriorates, if timely remedial action is not taken. Talking of performance, what is expected from the pipes may change over time (the loading may increase for instance), and the reliability with which they can perform these functions may decrease.
Highlights
Physical infrastructure assets are essential to provide a specific service, which may change over time, according to service needs, challenges and life style. 40-100 years old water and wastewater pipes were installed to provide a service – conveying water for consumption for the former, carrying away storm and sanitary water for the latter - to a given number of customers under assigned external conditions, and were designed according to technologies and rules existing at the time of installation
National reports on state of the urban infrastructures have been produced in several countries (e.g. Canada, USA, Denmark, Norway), evaluating the investment needs to replace aging facilities that are near the end of their useful lives and to comply with existing and future water regulations
Good decisions must address uncertainty and variability associated with global changes: relevant examples include planning for a reliable water supply, analyzing environmental impacts, or assessing health consequences as described in the Water Safety Plan (WSP) [7]
Summary
Physical infrastructure assets are essential to provide a specific service, which may change over time, according to service needs, challenges and life style. 40-100 years old water and wastewater pipes were installed to provide a service – conveying water for consumption for the former, carrying away storm and sanitary water for the latter - to a given number of customers under assigned external conditions, and were designed according to technologies and rules existing at the time of installation. The challenge is to work, at different levels, to contribute to the perception of the problem and allow decision-makers, owners and operators, to move towards solving it, starting from actions to assess the current state of infrastructure, report on its performance, predict future demands, requirements, conditions and corresponding level of performance, and to improve the management of infrastructure assets in a holistic way. While the engineering approach to analyze system performance and compute costs is quite well established in the water utilities, a gap is evident in the lack of use of risk and sustainability analysis to cope with increasing demands and challenges (climate changes, population growth, deterioration of infrastructure, environmental protections) of today’s integrated water systems. The development and embedding in standard procedures of a formalized approach to IAM facilitates decisionmaking, ensuring a better knowledge and comprehension of assets It allows to manage the relationships between cost, performance and risk and to achieve the best results using the available resources. Defining and monitoring service levels and key performance indicators (current and future)
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