Skip to main content Skip to main navigation Skip to page-level navigation Go to the Disability Resource Centre Website Go to the DRC Booking Accommodation Portal Go to the Inclusive Technology Lab Website
The University of British Columbia
UBC - A Place of Mind
The University of British Columbia Okanagan campus
UBC Okanagan News
  • Research
  • People
    • Student Profile
    • Faculty Profile
    • Alumni Spotlight
  • Campus Life
    • Campus News
    • Student Life
    • Teaching & Learning
  • Community Engagement
  • About the Collection
    • Stories for Media
  • UBCO Events
  • Search All Stories
Home / 2016 / February / 16 / UBC research helps small municipalities manage aging water systems
Policy & Social Change

UBC research helps small municipalities manage aging water systems

February 16, 2016

Rehan Sadiq, left, and Solomon Tesfamariam are working to improve municipal drinking water systems.

Rehan Sadiq, left, and Solomon Tesfamariam are working to improve municipal drinking water systems.

UBC researchers have developed a tool that is designed to help small to medium-sized cities and towns address the challenges posed by aging drinking water infrastructure in Canada.

The tool, developed by Solomon Tesfamariam and Rehan Sadiq who are civil engineering professors at UBC’s Okanagan campus, helps municipal water system operators and managers better understand the state of their infrastructure, most of which is hidden from the human eye.

It’s a challenge, says Tesfamariam, that is being felt by urban areas across Canada but is hitting smaller, resource-strapped cities and towns particularly hard.

“While larger cities like Vancouver or Toronto have access to budgets, engineers, and sophisticated data collection systems, smaller centres often have a single person who is responsible for looking after the entire drinking water system,” says Tesfamariam.

“Measuring how your system is doing and where investments are likely to have the greatest value to citizens is a very data intensive process, one which most small jurisdictions are just not equipped to handle.”

The tool is designed for smaller jurisdictions to assess and understand their water systems and compare them with like-sized cities and towns by helping them:

  • Understand what data is important to collect;
  • How to collect that data;
  • How to develop inventories of the various elements of a drinking water supply system, including infrastructure related to source water, treatment and water distribution;
  • Use an asset management framework that helps decision makers determine how best to invest limited resources in renewing their water systems.
UBC Professor Rehan Sadiq is working to develop a tool to help municipalities measure the quality of drinking water.

UBC Professor Rehan Sadiq 

According to the 2016 Canadian Infrastructure Report Card, municipal governments own nearly 60 per cent of Canada’s core infrastructure, which includes $207 billion worth of potable (drinkable) water infrastructure.

However, the Report Card states, 29 per cent of the Canadian drinking water infrastructure, worth roughly $65 billion, is rated either fair, poor, or very poor and is either at, or approaching the end of its useable life.

The Report Card, developed by the Canadian Construction Association, Canadian Public Works Association, the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, also reported that many municipalities did not have sufficient data with which to measure the state of their water infrastructure.

Currently, UBC Okanagan researchers are helping many small municipalities in British Columbia to use the tool and expand their capacity to monitor and renew their water systems.

The goal, says Sadiq, is to create a consortium of small cities and towns across the province and create a performance assessment system similar to the National Water and Wastewater Benchmarking initiative, which mainly sees participation by larger cities.

Local benchmarks would allow participating smaller municipalities to measure their water system against the average performance comparable cities and towns in their area.

“It’s well known that in order to be able to manage something, you’ve got to be able to measure it,” says Sadiq. “In the absence of useable benchmarks, we risk the minimum standards becoming a target to shoot for and we know that members of the municipal public service have much higher aspirations.”

Related research by Tesfamariam, Sadiq, and their graduate students were recently published in the Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering.

–30–

Media Contact

Matthew Grant
Associate Director
Public Affairs

The University of British Columbia
Okanagan campus
Tel: 250-807-9926
E-mail: matthew.grant@ubc.ca

Content type: Media Release
More content from: School of Engineering

Trending Stories

  • Opening doors for international student research
  • UBCO honours this year’s most outstanding researchers
  • Arts and science fiction connect: UBCO student designs the ...
  • Why don’t we eat turkey eggs?
  • Call for Canada to braid Indigenous rights with endangered ...
All Stories
Contact Media Relations

About UBC Okanagan

UBC’s Okanagan campus is an innovative hub for research and learning founded in partnership with local Indigenous peoples, the Syilx Okanagan Nation, in whose traditional, ancestral and unceded territory the campus resides. The most established and influential global rankings all consistently place UBC in the top five per cent of universities in the world, and among the top three Canadian universities.

The Okanagan campus combines a globally recognized UBC education with a tight-knit and entrepreneurial community that welcomes students and faculty from around the world in British Columbia’s stunning Okanagan Valley. For more visit ok.ubc.ca.

Discover more about UBC Okanagan

Find a Program Admissions Book a Tour UBCO Facts
UBC Okanagan Campus News, University Relations

Innovation Precinct Annexation 1 (IA1)
3505 Spectrum Court
Kelowna, BC Canada V1V 2Z1

We respectfully acknowledge the Syilx Okanagan Nation and their peoples, in whose traditional, ancestral, unceded territory UBC Okanagan is situated.

 

Search all stories

Subscribe to receive news by email

Visit UBC's Vancouver news room

Global and Admin Messages

News

Okanagan Campus

TikTok icon Linkedin icon

UBC Okanagan News
Okanagan Campus
3333 University Way
Kelowna, BC Canada V1V 1V7
Find us on
  
Back to top
The University of British Columbia
  • Emergency Procedures |
  • Terms of Use |
  • Copyright |
  • Accessibility