The objective of CARE-W was to estabilish a rational framework for water network rehabilitation decision-making. The ultimate product is a Decision Support System (DSS) that enables municipal engineers to establish and maintain effective management of their water systems. In other words: Rehabilitate the right pipelines at the right time by using the right rehabilitation technique at a minimum total cost, before failure occurs (pro-active approach).
Up to the starting point of CARE-W in 2001 some technical tools to assess the state of the pipes or the needs in rehabilitation had been developed or were under development in several European Research Centres and Universities. But they did not take into account all aspects of rehabilitation decisions, and had only been applied to a limited number of water services. They needed to be tested and validated on more water services and to be aggregated and linked with those performance indicators that are the decision criteria of rehabilitation.
The specific objectives of CARE-W were to improve these tools and to make them usable in formulating a rehabilitation policy. The final product of the project was a Decision Support System for rehabilitation including:
a control panel of Performance Indicators (PI) for rehabilitation,
a description of technical and statistical tools assessing and forecasting some of the PIs,
a procedure to define the best choice for annual rehabilitation programming,
a procedure to define the best strategy for planning rehabilitation investments (at long term: 10 to 20 years)
a software, called "prototype" in the following of the proposition, that allows to use the above products with the data existing in the respective water utility.
Major products CARE-W are the prototype and a handbook. The deliverables are available on CD-ROM and (partially) on paper. The end-users of this product are owners of water supply systems, operating companies and utilities, local authorities, financial institutions and national regulators.
CARE-W contributes to objectives of the Key Action "Sustainable Management and Quality of Water" by:
addressing the problem of water networks at a European level;
implementing EU water policies;
improving quality of life, health and safety;
improving employment and the use/level of skills;
preserving and enhancing the environment as well as the use of natural resources;
fostering economic development and S&T prospects.
CARE-W belonged to the CityNet cluster (The network of European research projects on integrated urban water management).
Published January 14, 2008
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