Engineering For Water And Wastewater Infrastructure Resilience

The water and wastewater industry is very conservative and, in developed countries, utilities are willing to spend a great deal of money on backup equipment, spare parts, communications, mutual aid agreements and other hardware and software to ensure that customers are provided uninterrupted service in spite of whatever problems are thrown at them. In terms of water distribution and wastewater collection, they need to contend with pipe breaks, leakage in and out of pipes and appurtenances, power outages, pump breakdowns, SCADA system failures, fires and other problems that could cripple the system if the utilities didn’t prepare adequately.

While there is little we can do to prevent these events, we need to think beyond the events that we have experienced. Improbable events are guaranteed to happen. The cost to be prepared is almost always much less than the cost not to be prepared.