Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

Motivation for the research stems from the recognition of the fact that safe and secure water supplies are vital for the high quality of life and prosperity of Canadians. Water distribution systems are essential for ensuring health, safety, economic security and overall quality of life in an urban environment. To efficiently manage water infrastructure, large-sized municipalities diligently follow asset management paradigm, which helps to optimize the value of capital as well as maintenance, renewal and replacement investment planning. However, due to lack of financial resources and technical expertise, the asset management has not been properly implemented in small to medium-sized utilities. This project is aimed at developing an asset management tool for water mains that accounts to 60-80% of the water distribution system. Proposed tool will address effective and efficient management of water distribution system for small to medium-sized water utilities by developing a risk-based asset management framework. This research will focus on three interdependent themes, namely, (1) Performance and condition assessment, (2) Project level decision-making, and (3) Network level decision-making (asset accounting). Two medium-sized water utilities, namely, Glenmore-Ellison Improvement District and District of West Kelowna, will be partner in this research and be used as a test bed for the application of proposed asset management tool. This research will help Canada to lead R&D in this domain. This will train many HQPs that will be able to disseminate the knowledge in a near future.