3 Waters Resilience Assessment Guideline and Opportunity for Improvement

Annual Conference

Water supply, wastewater, and stormwater systems are often collectively referred to as the 3 waters systems in New Zealand. The 3 waters systems are of importance in supporting community’s basic needs. The 3 waters are vulnerable to natural hazards (e.g., earthquakes, flooding) and may suffer both structural (physical) damage and/or non-structural (equipment) damage. Damage could lead to reduced functionality or the entire shut-down of the 3 waters systems, with failure impairing the community’s wellbeing. Consequently, this could have considerable impact on the daily functioning of the whole society.

In response a resilience assessment guideline is developed for 3 waters systems for the New Zealand context by Beca. This was commissioned jointly by the University of Canterbury Quake Centre, Water New Zealand and IPWEA. This guideline aims to promote wider understanding of network resilience and the costs and benefits of potential strategies for improving the resilience of pipe networks, to inform pipe network intervention strategies. The guideline aims to assist with developing evidence and a knowledge base for improving system resilience in preparation for natural hazards. The guideline provides tools and strategies enabling asset owners to make rational and strategic decisions for asset management and urban planning of 3 waters systems. This guideline will fit into a wider framework of guidance being developed to set national good practice in asset management in 3 waters with particular emphasis on pipe renewals.

This paper presents the definition of 3 waters resilience in the context of New Zealand. Furthermore, examples of the underlying philosophy for improving 3 waters resilience and the key considerations when assessing system resilience for 3 waters facilities are discussed. Lastly, the potential benefits of integrating resilience assessment in the process of asset management are presented.

Conference Papers

5.00pm Melanie Liu Beca 3 waters resilience guideline and opportunity to improv....pdf

pdf
146 KB
06 Nov 2017

5.00pm M Liu.pdf

pdf
2 MB
06 Nov 2017