Abstract

In major cities world wide, deterioration of water mains is a continuous process; therefore, the need to improve the condition of water mains becomes crucial. While most municipalities have taken proactive measures in repairing, rehabilitating and replacing deteriorated water mains, more investigation still needs to be done in order to assist municipalities to make right decisions on limited budgets. Building deterioration models and prioritizing water main rehabilitation are more important than ever. The deterioration of water mains includes structural and functional degradations. The present research focuses on the collection of water main data from municipalities and the analysis of water main breaks as a representative of the structural deterioration. Data have been collected from three municipalities that have large water distribution networks in Canada with a total water main length of 2,552 Km