We’ve all seen the headlines…

Hendon and Finchley Times AUGUST:

Burst pipe chaos
A two foot-wide water main burst under the North Circular and left 8,000 homes in Hendon and Golders Green without water, some for 24 hours. In the meantime, residents had to use buckets and washing up bowls to collect water from trucks in the street.

Water is essential for every day existence whether in first or third world economies. Yet with increasing urbanisation, greater stress on limited water resources, and ageing pipeline systems, to name only a few factors, there appears to be little appetite at national and international levels of first world economies for confronting the major infrastructure challenges that face us. Why should this be?

Climate change and the impact of humans on these changes seem to dominate political thinking. These include concerns about changing rainfall patterns, increased severe storm events and, yes, their impact on water catchment, transportation and management. But whether caused by human activity or not, there is a very real danger that relying on a pipeline infrastructure that is both ageing and unable to cope with these varying demands will result in a rapid collapse in water supply and quality which will be both difficult and take a long time to recover from. Sewer flooding or collapse results in even more unpleasant consequences and health hazards.

Concerns about the investments required to ensure the long term availability of water supply to consumers were discussed at a recent meeting of European fluid flow experts in Italy. Ironically the meeting coincided with a national electricity blackout, an event which highlighted the apparent operational fragility of many of today’s utilities businesses. One of the delegates predicted that if this had occurred on one of Europe’s many water supply reservoirs or pipelines or main sewers the impact on public health and business would be more long term and costly, than in the case of the electricity failure, which the Italians coped admirably well with.

Is this just scare mongering? Well, look at some facts. A recent survey of the UK water utilities estimated that at the current rate of pipe renewal or replacement of the existing sewerage network could take as long as 1600 years in some water companies! A similar survey in the Netherlands came up with a replacement period of 200 years. Yet pipes are typically designed for less than 100 years, highlighting that without accelerated replacement or repair, increased disruption to water availability and water quality is inevitable.

Reduced rainfall has the visible impact of reducing water supply at source and, less visibly, also lowers the ground water level which reduces moisture content in soils. As a result buried pipes are more likely to move. This is probably responsible for several recent events of potable water pipeline breakage recorded in the Netherlands. Ground movement also results in cracks and displaced joints in sewers allowing leakage into the surrounding area and potentially into aquifers and boreholes. Perhaps more worryingly for the Dutch, several old dikes have collapsed caused in part by the same conditions.

The SurgeNet group, meeting in the ancient city of Perugia with its 3000 year old Etruscan walls and more youthful (only 2000 year old), Roman clay pipes was an appropriate venue for experts in water hydraulics to debate ways to ensure the security and longevity of Europe’s pipeline infrastructure. The group recognises that there is considerable work underway addressing how to manage the integrity of pipe systems. Unfortunately, the inability or reluctance of many in the water industry to employ these techniques (due to cost, disruption to water supply, water quality, and other reasons) highlights that there is a growing need for alternative solutions.

In particular the group established the need for advanced prediction tools for pipe life cycle analysis; new non-intrusive leak and pipeline condition assessment techniques, and new internal coating methods for covering 100% of distribution systems. Naturally these methods would need to ensure minimum disruption to consumers and the public in general.

BHR Group recognises that many of these challenges need to be tackled at a national, and even international level, and is involved with several initiatives to advance the science and engineering from which new application solutions will emerge. To do this BHR is working in both the UK and EU to bring together centres of technical excellence from different disciplines to prepare research consortia to address these issues. Contact us for more details or to discuss your ideas or involvement.

Members of the Surge-Net Group are also preparing plans for taking forward the generic research and development programmes which address the issues relevant across the water industry and are presenting these to industry, government and other agencies. The response to these may well determine the capacity of industry to meet the growing demand for water availability, against a background of diminishing water supply and limited investment capital. For more information on the SurgeNet project click this link http://www.surge-net.info/index.html