Technical Papers
Sep 30, 2019

Wastewater Pipe Condition Rating Model Using Multicriteria Decision Analysis

Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 145, Issue 12

Abstract

This paper presents a novel wastewater pipe condition rating model that builds on published literature and expands on industry-accepted and used guidelines and practices that currently consider mostly structural and operational defects in estimating pipe condition. A series of pipe internal and external, as well as hydraulic factors and parameters are identified and included in the proposed methodology to obtain a comprehensive rating of the pipe’s current condition. By using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) multicriteria decision analysis, subject matter expert knowledge and input is used to determine relative importance weights of carefully selected and defined criteria and factors that affect wastewater pipe condition. The level of agreement between subject matter expert opinions is tested by employing statistical analysis. An in-depth sensitivity analysis using clustering is presented to determine the main criteria’s sensitivity to changing relative importance weights. For validation purposes, the proposed model is applied to a small portion of a US wastewater collection system. The results show satisfactory average validity percentage.

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Data Availability Statement

Some or all data, models, or code generated or used during the study are available from the corresponding author by request.

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Go to Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 145Issue 12December 2019

History

Received: Aug 30, 2018
Accepted: Apr 17, 2019
Published online: Sep 30, 2019
Published in print: Dec 1, 2019
Discussion open until: Feb 29, 2020

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Engineering Analyst, Xylem/Pure Technologies, 8920 State Route 108, Suite D, Columbia, MD 21045 (corresponding author). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3844-9367. Email: [email protected]; [email protected]
Director, Trenchless Technology Center, 599 Dan Reneau Dr., Engineering Annex RM 203, Ruston, LA 71270. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1478-5182. Email: [email protected]

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