By Greg Baird
Our nation faces many trials of resiliency -- "the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties." The trials occur at every level -- as individuals, communities and cities.
The infrastructure that supports our standard of living and represents the backbone of public health includes our water and sewer systems. The 2021 Infrastructure Report Card from the American Society of Civil Engineers gave us a “C-“ in water, a “D+” in wastewater and a “D” grade in stormwater. Urban sprawl, annexations, underfunding, water quality, water demand, aging infrastructure, new regulatory requirements, demographic shifts and climate change over time all impact our water distribution and wastewater collections systems.
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Unfortunately, recent benchmarks show that CCTV and AI-CCTV miss 80-100% of leak locations causing infiltration, as CCTV camera are unable to differentiate superficial cracks from leaks that go through a pipe wall, are unable to correctly assess joints as cameras cannot see through the bell & spigot of the pipe, cannot tell if a service connection is watertight, and not able to correctly certify rehabilitation as leak-free.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a valuable tool, but not when applied to mediums that rely on visual interpretations that only assess the wall of an inner pipe.
In contrast, British water utilities are adopting machine-intelligent technologies that correctly assess each pipe wall leakage, in addition to assigning a Gallon per Minute (Litres per Second) quantification to allow repairs & rehabilitation to quantify pinpoint corrective actions and reductions in flow.
Chuck Hansen
Former Chair, ASTM F36.20 Inspection and Rehabilitation of Water and Wastewater Infrastructure, committee Member, AWWA Water Condition Assessment Committee, 2021 Environment+Energy Leader Top 100