Communities around the world are racing to break down the
silos of how we have traditionally viewed water management. In the past, potable water, wastewater, and
stormwater were each viewed as separate quantities. The notion of “One Water” is increasingly
gaining traction in many parts of the globe.
In Texas and other parts of the Southwest and California, a multi-year
drought and concerns regarding climate change are forcing public officials and
managers to rethink their reliance on imported water sources.
Cities are expanding their efforts to further integrate
water strategies that encompass groundwater remediation, stormwater capture and
storage, recycled water, and conservation.
The idea of “One Water” is interfacing with the world of grey/green
infrastructure and green/blue water. As
illustrated on the attached graphics, the worlds of grey/green and green/blue water
are increasingly interconnected. These
interconnections produce opportunities (i.e., recycling wastewater) along with
risks (i.e., a gasoline spill on a highway can potentially contaminate
stormwater capture and storage infrastructure used for park and athletic field
irrigation).
The key to successful management in this new interconnected
world is the willingness to embrace “Whole System Approach” asset
management. The world of green-blue
infrastructure is notably one of regional and distributed stormwater harvesting
systems based on integrated planning efforts.
The cornerstone of these types of integrated planning efforts must be an
approach to asset management that looks at all the systems and their
interconnections.
In recent decades, concerns over poor service performance
(often only highlighted during high profile failure of infrastructure) and
unnecessary loss of asset value (arising from inadequate maintenance and
capital renewal) has driven governments across the globe to demand improvements
in infrastructure management practice in the public sector. All of these concerns currently persist, but
new asset management concerns wait on the horizon as we reduce silos and
develop more fully integrated infrastructure.
Enhanced watershed management plans will require more robust
full spectrum asset management. Projects
involving watershed management improvement will involve code changes, public
education/outreach, eliminating illegal discharges, carrying out inspections,
cleaning storm drains, and sweeping streets.
All of this will require systems and management structures that reduce
and eliminate barriers between department and systems. Capturing and treating stormwater from
parking lots in municipal and recreational areas is an example of another
watershed enhancement program. Bioswales
can be installed to direct dry-weather flows from parking lots to constructed
wetlands. The ability to connect the
dots between and among distributed infrastructure systems will be a key
management attribute for asset management engineers in the coming years.
Asset management provides many tools and opportunities for
asset managers to see system interconnections and value chains. The infrastructure asset management policy
objective and principles of any organization needs to incorporate the “Whole
System Approach” into the principles of sustainable service delivery,
social/economic development, custodianship, transparency, and cost
effectiveness/efficiency. Specific
requirements for a “Whole System Approach” to asset management must consider
the following:
·
Information
and Data Collection – An asset register must cover all the
infrastructure assets and provide data to support effective systems integration
and coordination. An organization must
adopt simple and robust processes that allow for information transfer and
exchange. The more critical the
infrastructure – the greater the focus on detail.
·
Asset
Knowledge – A system must be in place that links information from the
asset registry. A GIS platform is the
simplest and best methodology to illustrate and manage interconnections between
systems in the green/blue world.
·
Level
of Service – Linking customer service levels and satisfaction is
critical. Measures must be easy to
implement and manageable. Performance in
one system must be viewed in the context of the other interfacing systems.
·
Demand
– Increased resource demands and reductions will place demands
throughout interconnected systems.
Something like housing starts will place asset management demands on all
parts of the green/blue world.
·
Risk
Management – Linking the performance of one system to another produces
risk. Understanding risk and
consequences is much easier with a holistic asset management system.
·
Life-Cycle
Plan – Financial and cash flow modeling of integrated systems is easier
with a robust asset management program.
Understanding condition assessments and the time-to-failure of an
infrastructure asset produces more realistic financial plans. This is especially true in a world of
interconnections.
·
Practice
Improvement Plan – Monitoring the distributed and interconnected
systems of the green/blue world will produce opportunities for evaluation and
improvement. A fully developed asset
management system provides data and information for more proactive, preventive,
and predictive decision making and continuous improvement.
The world is increasingly moving toward “closed looped”
systems. Communities want to prevent
stormwater from leaving the city, capture and cleanse the water, and use it
on-site or allow it to infiltrate into the ground wherever possible. At the same time, cities are moving to
recycle as much wastewater as possible as cost-effectively as possible for
nonpotable uses or indirect possible use.
Communities will be increasingly focused on balancing the demands of
greater and greater system interconnections with opportunities and advantages
of the “Whole System Approach” to asset management.
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