Tade, O; O’Neill, S; Smith, K G; Williams, T; Ali, A; Bayyati, A and See, H (2019) Modified sewer asset management to accommodate London's future sustainable development. International Journal of Building Pathology and Adaptation, 37(1), pp. 22-41. ISSN 23984708
Abstract
Purpose: This paper is about best practice in managing legacy drainage assets to support sustainable urban regeneration. The purpose of this paper is to describe best practice sewer asset management (AM) and to adjust the current reactive maintenance approach for sewers, to one that accommodates long-term operational and town planning needs. The development of an improved sewer deterioration model (DM) provided an important tool for this. Design/methodology/approach: This research adopts a mixture of qualitative and quantitative approaches to analyse a total network length of 24,252 km which represents 703,156 records of historic sewer structural condition inspection data. This was used to build an improved DM. These models were used as inputs into a proactive AM approach that improves upon recommendations in the Sewerage Rehabilitation Manual developed by Water Research Centre. Findings: This is a paradigm shift and goes beyond the current culture of OFWAT (Water Services Regulation Authority) supervision, five-year asset management period and occasional environmental penalties. A new legislative model may be needed; especially because a report by UKWIR (Water Industry Research) in 2015 identified that nationally the rate of sewer network deterioration is outpacing available investment and significant health problems may arise in addition to those from developmental pressures. Research limitations/implications: The authors have researched and managed old sewer networks and present a review of the new issues raised by intensive development, particularly for the London region, but applicable elsewhere, and how these must lead to a modified risk, and novel incentive-based approach to AM, if the system is not to fail. Originality/value: Large, legacy databases of several decades of sewer network performance records have been combined and analysed as stratified, heterogeneous sets with Gaussian distributions; thereby improving on previous assumptions of homogeneous data. The resulting rigorous DMs are the foundation of new approaches to sustainable risk management of large urban networks.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | asset management; maintenance and inspection; service life; sewers and drains |
| Index terms: | database, inspection, service life, research centre, supervision, best practice, paradigm, London, risk management, town planning, sustainable development, asset management, deterioration, sewer, penalty, urban regeneration, drainage, methodology, regulation |
| Subjects: | education and knowledge transfer, research methods, post-disaster and reconstruction, health safety and environment, Geography, urban design, data management, asset management, regulatory law, infrastructure and transport systems, quality assurance, political science, construction type, risk assessment, business, control systems, material degradation and durability |
| Topics: | Urban Studies, Digital Applications, Design Practice, Legal Issues, Quality Management, Risk Management, Governance, Construction Technology, Health and Safety, Business Strategy, Engineering Principles, Construction Materials, Research Practice, Geographical Context, Project Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCT |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here