Web-Based and Geospatially Enabled Risk Screening Tool for Water and Wastewater Pipeline Infrastructure Systems

Abstract

This paper focuses on the development of a web-based geospatial tool as a proof of concept to assist water utilities in performing a network-level risk screening of their buried water and wastewater pipeline infrastructure systems. This tool provides a preliminary risk screening at a high level to quickly identify problematic (hot spot) areas and help guide decisions about where to further analyze pipeline infrastructure systems. The tool employs a prototypical heuristic risk model developed with the involvement of five experts from the industry, with the primary intent of running the tool and assessing potential industry value. A case study of the tool results and utility feedback are presented. The web-based geospatial tool developed in this research enables the risk screening model results to be visualized and queried in a user-friendly, interactive environment for usefulness at the network level among water utilities.