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Texas-based New Braunfels Utilities (NBU) used a range of leak detection equipment manufactured by HWM to build an efficient maintenance program for its distribution network while drastically reducing water loss. The equipment has allowed NBU to conduct scheduled repairs on its pipelines instead of dealing with leaks on an emergency basis. The team began using this equipment to perform preventive maintenance on 750 valves per year and proactively scan the city for non-surfacing leaks. 5.1.5 Results obtained After two years, NBU estimates its average water loss at 1760 litres per kilometre per day, which is less than half the loss rate during the program's first year. "Everyone knows that water is a precious resource and its preservation requires a ton of attention," said NBU Operations and Maintenance Division Manager.

Sustainable management of urban water distribution networks should include not only new methods for monitoring, repairing or replacing aging infrastructure, but also (and more importantly) expanded methods for modelling deteriorating infrastructure, for pro-actively assessing the risk of failure and for devising replace or repair strategies. The study presented herein describes a framework for proactive risk-based integrity monitoring of urban water distribution networks and the results obtained from a case-study based on a 5-year data sample. A combination of artificial neural network and statistical modelling techniques stemming from parametric and nonparametric survival analysis (Kaplan-Meier survival curves with Epanechnikov's kernel) are utilized in the investigation of identified risk factors and for estimation of the forecasted time to failure metric. The data is stratified for different pipe groups for a more targeted analysis.

There is limited information about the current state of intermittent water supply (IWS) systems at the global level. A survey was carried out by the Intermittent Water Supply Specialist Group of the International Water Association (IWA IWS SG) to better understand the current state of these systems and challenges that water companies may have faced under COVID-19 pandemic and to capture successful management strategies applied by water utilities. The survey consisted of three parts: (1) general information about IWS systems, (2) current state of IWS and (3) resilience of IWS under COVID-19 conditions, as well as some questions about potential interventions in order to improve system performance in general and under future uncertain conditions. The survey responses were evaluated based on the Safe & SuRe resilience framework, assessing measures of mitigation, adaptation, coping and learning, and exploring organisational and operational responses of IWS utilities. Infrastructure capacity and water resources availability were identified as the main causes of intermittency in most water distribution systems, while intermittent electricity was considered as the main external cause. Participants indicated that some risk assessment process was in place; however, COVID-19 has surpassed any provisions made to address the risks. Lessons learnt highlighted the importance of financial resources, e-infrastructure for efficient system operation and communication with consumers, and the critical role of international knowledge transfer and the sharing of best practice guidelines for improving resilience and transitioning towards continuous water supply.

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