Leveraging Asset Management Data for Improved Water Infrastructure Planning

Canadian Water Network, PSD, Canadian Water and Wastewater Association (2017-2018)

Challenge

Asset management plans support utilities in defining and maintaining levels of service, identifying and minimizing lifecycle costs, and planning ahead for asset replacement and expansion. Good asset management practices are critical for effective decision-making and can support financial sustainability goals for municipalities.

In Canada, there has been a lot of focus over the last decade on the development and adoption of asset management plans. However, to utilize asset management plans most effectively to support decision-making and long-term planning, there is a need to understand what data is being collected and how it’s being used.

Project

In 2017, Canadian Water Network partnered with PSD and the Canadian Water and Wastewater Association to better understand asset management practices in Canada. The research looked specifically at what asset data is being collected by Canadian municipalities and utilities, and how this data is being used to support decisions regarding maintenance, repair and replacement, as well as investment and long-term strategic planning.

The analysis was derived from a national survey of asset managers and water system managers in 58 municipalities across Canada serving over 50% of the nation’s population. In-depth interviews were also conducted with utilities who have been implementing more advanced asset management approaches. The final report highlights potential challenges in data reliability, and subsequently, the confidence in the decisions being made. Finding the right balance between collecting high-quality condition data and understanding when other less-intensive means of data collection and analysis may be sufficient is an important aspect to implementing effective asset management practices. These findings point to opportunities for all levels of government to strengthen asset management programs by better supporting the collection of accurate data.

Outputs

• Leveraging Asset Management Data for Improved Water Infrastructure Planning was issued in 2018 highlighting that state-of-the practice for the use of asset management data to inform that have been undertaken by Canadian municipalities, including two detailed case studies.
• PSD, with support from the project partners, hosted a national webinar featuring guest speakers from the case study communities.
• Canadian Water Network distributed copies of the report at Blue Cities 2018: Smarter Water Management Decisions.
• The Canadian Water and Wastewater Association presented findings from the report during a panel discussion at the 2018 National Water and Wastewater Conference.

Outcomes

The findings from this report highlight the need to improve asset management practices in Canada. Support from governments to date have focused largely on plan development, but a greater emphasis on supporting the ongoing collection of good asset data will advance and improve asset management and subsequent decision-making. These findings were discussed with federal government officials, and strategies to include ongoing asset data collection and maintenance as eligible components in federal funding programs was recommended as a possibility to improve asset management outcomes.

In 2018-19, CWN is partnering again with PSD and the Canadian Water and Wastewater Association, and also the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, to develop a follow-up report looking at approaches to use data to help identify climate change-related asset vulnerabilities in Canadian communities. The insights from this second study will provide strategies on using data to better assess system risks, ultimately enabling more effective investment prioritization and decision-making to improve system resiliency.