Water infrastructure asset management: state of the art and emerging research themes

Abstract

The long-term maintenance of infrastructure requires asset management. This latter is defined as a series of actions aimed at the long-term maintenance of the capacity of an infrastructure to provide an efficient service for users, at costs and with impacts that are tolerable for society and the environment. The actions implemented concern notably the inventory of infrastructures, their monitoring, inspection and maintenance, the analysis of their state and performance, their reinforcement, renovation, and the definition of long-term technical-financial policies. This article is structured around four themes based on the authors’ experience faced with an analysis of the perspectives set out in recent articles. For each theme, a state of the art largely based on the literature in the field, as well as emerging and nevertheless pressing needs in terms of knowledge production and tools to support reflection and decision-making are presented: temporal and spatial dimensions of water infrastructure asset management and their consistency; multi-infrastructure management seen from the perspective of physical interdependences and decision-aids; governance, organisations and territories; digital representation of the socio-technical infrastructural system. The analysis is carried out following several disciplines from the engineering and, the human and social sciences. Infrastructure linked to water are studied.