National Water Pipeline Infrastructure Database PIPEiD

As part of a five-year project funded by the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) under the United States Congressional direction, a team of researchers at Virginia Tech has compiled and analyzed data from more than 500 US water utilities and 100 federal facilities across the country to provide a robust picture of the health of the nation’s water pipeline infrastructure systems. The image that has surfaced is one of 985,000 mi of transmission and distribution of water pipes in the United States. Installed water pipeline infrastructure in need of replacement is worth an estimated $3.6 trillion over the next 25 years. These findings are among dozens of key insights distilled into distinct reports on pipeline performance, risk, and economics, designed by the team for more detailed, drill-down reading by the country’s water utility managers and the water industry. The reports will also lay the foundation for a longer-term effort to bring the data and its analysis online. The team is building the Pipeline Infrastructure Database (PIPEiD) to create a secured, standardized, and easily-accessible online database that can help water utility managers better monitor pipeline infrastructure systems. PIPEiD can enable water utilities to learn from the local, regional, and national patterns it presents through modeling and visualization, using tools like artificial intelligence and GIS mapping. PIPEiD will allow users to run queries that provide helpful analysis for decision-making, such as estimating pipeline useful life. The team collected field performance data for potable, raw, and reuse water pipelines made from materials reflecting the wide range of pipes currently in the ground throughout the US, including cast and ductile iron, prestressed concrete cylinderpipe, reinforced concrete, steel, and thermoplastic. The researchers worked to collect data distributed across different ecological areas, or cohorts, organized based on the climatic conditions of the 500 water utilities’ locations. These cohorts included coastal, arid, Arctic, and mountainous regions. Researchers factored in environmental conditions, such as soil corrosivity, traffic loading, and frost action, that can affect pipelines. The purpose of this paper is to disseminate the significance and key contributions of the research work. PIPEiD will provide descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive data analytics to address all three major asset management levels: strategic, tactical, and operational, and for water utilities of all sizes across the country. This paper is aimed at the water utility managers of small, medium, and large community water systems.