Assessing the value of water supply networks

Assessing the value of physical assets is an important part of good asset management practices. The value of existing assets has become a factor of special interest to the asset owners as outsourcing of maintenance duties has increased. The value of water and sewer systems should also be assessed in order to follow up the development of the network's long-term condition during a maintenance partnership contract and to determine the return on investment for the owners. In addition, the deficiencies in assessing the value of the system are considered one of the main obstacles to wider application of private-public co-operation. The assessment of the value of any water supply system entails several challenges. There are no commonly accepted assessment methods, at least not in Finland. Many factors affect the condition of the network, which makes the determination of the usable life difficult. The use of existing value assessment methods is also essential in order to assess the systems economically. However, the value should be addressed holistically instead of determining only the economic value of the system. This paper presents a Finnish perspective on the assessment of water and sewer systems. The paper was written during a research project involving several companies and organisations from the public and private sectors as well as a number of research organisations. The research project concentrates on promoting co-operation between public and private companies and on the development of tools for the management of risks and opportunities during the co-operation. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive discussion on the value assessment of the water and sewer systems. We also evaluate the applicability of the different value assessment methods to the water and sewer systems.