A case study on condition assessment of water and sanitation infrastructure

Abstract

The management of physical assets covers a wide scope and range of processes that include acquisition, control, use, disposal and re-cycling of built environment structures in a manner that satisfies the constraints imposed by business performance, environment, ergonomics, and sustainability requirements. Technologies applicable towards the management of infrastructure assets for water and sanitation services are advancing rapidly apparently influenced by advances in condition monitoring, information and communication technologies. This paper discusses condition and risk assessment of water and sanitation assets. Although inferences are drawn from available public domain literature and non-probabilistic survey of representatives of organisations engaged in water and sanitation services, the findings reiterate that the most rapid trends are in technologies for the collection and transfer of data. We also find that the understanding and practice of asset management in water and sanitation services providers is still in infancy, and thus begs to question some of the purported benefits of technology applications for such organisations.