You are here:
Water Infrastructure Asset Management Primer (WERF Report INFR9SG09b)
Citation:
Gay, L. AND S. Sinha. Water Infrastructure Asset Management Primer (WERF Report INFR9SG09b). Water Environment Research Foundation, Alexandria, VA, 2014.
Impact/Purpose:
Benefits: •Provides a basic guidance on application of integrated and holistic water infrastructure management practices. •Presents a discussion on the state-of-the-literature and the state-of-the-practice on water infrastructure management in terms of performance management, sustainability management, and resiliency management. •Compares both the theoretical and practical realms to identify gaps and formulate recommendations for improving infrastructure system management and for advancing infrastructure asset management theory and practice in the water sector, integrated with both sustainability and resiliency concepts.
Description:
Abstract: Water infrastructure systems are essential for sustaining societal quality of life. However, they face a variety of challenges and potential threats to sustained performance, including aging, deterioration, underfunding, disruptive events, and population growth, among others. Infrastructure asset management can contribute significantly to address those challenges and sustain system performance in the long term. Current infrastructure asset management frameworks focus mostly on performance management, and although sustainability and resiliency management are considered at some degree, it is necessary to advance the understanding and integration of more practical and comprehensive sustainability and resiliency enhancing methods and tools into mainstream asset management practice. This primer presents an integrated understanding of water infrastructure management in terms of performance management, sustainability management, and resiliency management. It also presents a discussion on the state-of-the-literature and the state-of-the-practice on these three infrastructure management topics as observed by the WATERiD research team while developing the national knowledge database. Finally, this primer compares both the theoretical and practical domains to identify gaps and formulate recommendations for improving holistic water infrastructure asset management. [NOTE: The link below connects to a WERF site where the Final Report can be downloaded for free, after registering at the WERF site. For some projects the Executive Summary is available and can be downloaded for free without registering on the WERF site.]
