Abstract
This exploratory study uses corrosion rates in aging metal pipes to predict the number of holes in drinking water supply systems over time. Using this estimate of the number of holes, it is possible to estimate the volume and number of pathogens introduced by negative-pressure events by Monte Carlo simulation. The probability of an intrusion volume greater than 10 L increases from less than 1% in a 25-year-old pipe to greater than 70% in a 150-year-old pipe. Surprisingly, however, health risks associated with three pathogens increase little with increasing pipe age. Some pathogens, like Giardia, are so abundant that almost any intrusion volume presents a risk, virtually independent of pipe age. Other organisms, such as Cryptosporidium, are present at such low concentrations that the risk remains low. The only evidence of significant increase in health risk (rotavirus) was predicted to occur early in the service life of the pipe (i.e., fewer than 50 years), and many pipes are much older. Because there is little evidence health risk due to intrusion increasing over time, it would seem that controlling intrusion risk is unlikely to be the key factor in developing pipe repair and replacement strategies. A simple model for assessing the overall health risks associated with intrusion is provided, suggesting the number of negative-pressure events and pipe residence time are important risk factors.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship. The authors gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the anonymous reviewers, who greatly improved this work.
References
Besner, M.-C., M. Prévost, and S. Regli. 2011. “Assessing the public health risk of microbial intrusion events in distribution systems: Conceptual model, available data, and challenges.” Water Res. 45 (3): 961–979. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2010.10.035.
Besner, M.-C., P. Servais, and M. Prévost. 2008. “Efficacy of disinfectant residual on microbial intrusion: A review of experiments.” J. Am. Water Works Assoc. 100 (10): 116–130. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1551-8833.2008.tb09752.x.
Collins, R., and J. Boxall. 2013. “Influence of ground conditions on intrusion flows through apertures in distribution pipes.” J. Hydraul. Eng. 139 (10): 1052–1061. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)HY.1943-7900.0000719.
Craun, G. F., and R. L. Calderon. 2001. “Waterborne disease outbreaks caused by distribution system deficiencies.” J. Am. Water Works Assoc. 93 (9): 64–75. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1551-8833.2001.tb09287.x.
Doyle, G., M. Seica, and M. Grabinsky. 2003. “The role of soil in the external corrosion of cast iron water mains in Toronto, Canada.” Can. Geotech. J. 40 (2): 225–236. https://doi.org/10.1139/t02-106.
Ebacher, G., M. C. Besner, B. Clément, and M. Prévost. 2012. “Sensitivity analysis of some critical factors affecting simulated intrusion volumes during a low pressure transient event in a full-scale water distribution system.” Water Res. 46 (13): 4017–4030. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2012.05.006.
Geldreich, E. E., K. R. Fox, J. A. Goodrich, E. W. Rice, R. M. Clark, and D. L. Swerdlow. 1992. “Searching for a water supply connection in the Cabool, Missouri disease outbreak of Escherichia coli 0157:H7.” Water Res. 26 (8): 1127–1137. https://doi.org/10.1016/0043-1354(92)90150-3.
Ghorbanian, V., B. Karney, and Y. Guo. 2017. “Intrinsic relationship between energy consumption, pressure, and leakage in water distribution systems.” Urban Water J. 14 (5): 515–521. https://doi.org/10.1080/1573062X.2016.1223325.
Greyvenstein, B., and J. E. van Zyl. 2007. “An experimental investigation into the pressure: Leakage relationship of some failed water pipes.” J. Water Supply Res. Technol. AQUA 56 (2): 117–124. https://doi.org/10.2166/aqua.2007.065.
Gullick, R. W., M. W. LeChevallier, R. C. Svindland, and M. Friedman. 2004. “Occurrence of transient low and negative pressures in distribution systems.” J. Am. Water Works Assoc. 96 (11): 52–66. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1551-8833.2004.tb10741.x.
Guy, R. A., P. Payment, U. J. Krull, and P. A. Horgen. 2003. “Real-time PCR for quantification of Giardia and Cryptosporidium in environmental water samples and sewage.” Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 69 (9): 5178–5185. https://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.69.9.5178-5185.2003.
Islam, N., A. Farahat, M. A. M. Al-Zahrani, M. J. Rodriguez, and R. Sadiq. 2015. “Contaminant intrusion in water distribution networks: Review and proposal of an integrated model for decision making.” Environ. Rev. 23 (3): 337–352. https://doi.org/10.1139/er-2014-0069.
Kirmeyer, G. J., and AWWA (American Water Works Association) Research Foundation, eds. 2001. Pathogen intrusion into the distribution system. Denver: AWWA Research Foundation.
Kitajima, M., E. Haramoto, B. C. Iker, and C. P. Gerba. 2014. “Occurrence of Cryptosporidium, Giardia, and Cyclospora in influent and effluent water at wastewater treatment plants in Arizona.” Sci. Total Environ. 484 (Jun): 129–136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.03.036.
LeChevallier, M. W., R. W. Gullick, M. R. Karim, M. Friedman, and J. E. Funk. 2003. “The potential for health risks from intrusion of contaminants into the distribution system from pressure transients.” J. Water Health 1 (1): 3–14. https://doi.org/10.2166/wh.2003.0002.
Lindley, T., and S. Buchberger. 2002. “Assessing intrusion susceptibility in distribution systems.” J. Am. Water Works Assoc. 94 (6): 66–79. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1551-8833.2002.tb09490.x.
Mansour-Rezaei, S., G. Naser, A. Malekpour, and B. W. Karney. 2013. “Contaminant intrusion in water distribution systems: A Lagrangian-Eulerian transient water quality model.” J. Am. Water Works Assoc. 105 (6): E278–E290. https://doi.org/10.5942/jawwa.2013.105.0061.
McInnis, D. 2004. “A relative-risk framework for evaluating transient pathogen intrusion in distribution systems.” Urban Water J. 1 (2): 113–127. https://doi.org/10.1080/15730620412331290010.
Mora-Rodríguez, J., X. Delgado-Galván, H. M. Ramos, and P. A. López-Jiménez. 2017. “An overview of leaks and intrusion for different pipe materials and failures.” Urban Water J. 11 (1): 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/1573062X.2012.739630.
Nsanzubuhoro, R., J. E. van Zyl, and A. Zingoni. 2017. “Predicting the head-area slopes of circular holes in water pipes.” Procedia Eng. 186: 110–116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2017.03.216.
Ossai, C. I., B. Boswell, and I. J. Davies. 2015. “Estimation of internal pit depth growth and reliability of aged oil and gas pipelines—A Monte Carlo simulation approach.” Corrosion 71 (8): 977–991. https://doi.org/10.5006/1543.
Pelletier, G., A. Mailhot, and J.-P. Villeneuve. 2003. “Modeling water pipe breaks—Three case studies.” J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage. 129 (2): 115–123. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9496(2003)129:2(115).
Plutzer, J., P. Karanis, K. Domokos, A. Törökné, and K. Márialigeti. 2008. “Detection and characterisation of Giardia and Cryptosporidium in Hungarian raw, surface and sewage water samples by IFT, PCR and sequence analysis of the SSUrRNA and GDH genes.” Int. J. Hyg. Environ. Health 211 (5–6): 524–533. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheh.2008.04.004.
Propato, M., and J. G. Uber. 2004. “Vulnerability of water distribution systems to pathogen intrusion: How effective is a disinfectant residual?” Environ. Sci. Technol. 38 (13): 3713–3722. https://doi.org/10.1021/es035271z.
Regli, S., J. Rose, C. N. Haas, and C. P. Gerba. 1991. “Modeling the risk from Giardia and viruses in drinking water.” J. Am. Water Works Assoc. 83 (11): 76–84. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1551-8833.1991.tb07252.x.
Teunis, P. F. M., M. Xu, K. K. Fleming, J. Yang, C. L. Moe, and M. W. LeChevallier. 2010. “Enteric virus infection risk from intrusion of sewage into a drinking water distribution network.” Environ. Sci. Technol. 44 (22): 8561–8566. https://doi.org/10.1021/es101266k.
van Zyl, J. E., A. O. Lambert, and R. Collins. 2017. “Realistic modeling of leakage and intrusion flows through leak openings in pipes.” J. Hydraul. Eng. 143 (9): 04017030. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)HY.1943-7900.0001346.
Ward, R., D. Bernstein, E. Young, J. Sherwood, D. Knowlton, and G. Schiff. 1986. “Human rotavirus studies in volunteers: Determination of infectious dose and serological response to infection.” J. Infect. Dis. 154 (5): 871–880. https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/154.5.871.
Yang, X., and D. L. Boccelli. 2016. “Dynamic water-quality simulation for contaminant intrusion events in distribution systems.” J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage. 142 (10): 04016038. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)WR.1943-5452.0000674.
Yang, Y., D. Z. Zhu, T. Zhang, W. Liu, and S. Guo. 2016. “Improved model for contaminant intrusion induced by negative pressure events in water distribution systems.” J. Hydraul. Eng. 142 (10): 06016012. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)HY.1943-7900.0001176.
Zhou, W. 2010. “System reliability of corroding pipelines.” Int. J. Pressure Vessels Pip. 87 (10): 587–595. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpvp.2010.07.011.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
©2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 2, 2018
Accepted: Aug 27, 2018
Published online: Jan 12, 2019
Published in print: Mar 1, 2019
Discussion open until: Jun 12, 2019
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.