GCRI · Critical Infrastructure
Water and wastewater assets
Water and wastewater systems treat and deliver drinking water and collect and treat sewage. Their assets are long-lived, mostly buried and often old, and they depend on electricity, treatment chemicals, communications and skilled staff. This page sets out how these systems fail, how asset condition and service continuity are measured, and what evidence serves the utilities and regulators responsible for them.
Water and wastewater assets on the record.
Water and wastewater assets: how the risk develops.
Facilities, utility networks and service areas. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
Buried assets age unseen
Pipes corrode, joints leak and sewers crack over decades, largely out of sight. Underinvestment in renewal shows up later as rising breaks, leakage and contamination risk.
Pumping needs power
Treatment and pumping stop when power fails unless backup is available. Pressure loss can let contaminants enter pipes, which leads to boil-water advisories after restoration.
Floods overwhelm sewers
Heavy rain exceeds sewer and treatment capacity, causing overflows to rivers and streets. Flooded treatment plants can stop working for weeks.
Chemicals and parts are supply chains
Treatment depends on deliveries of coagulants and disinfectants and on spare parts. Disrupted supply chains can force reduced treatment or service cuts.
Water now in Western Europe.
Night lights, flood water, population density and true-colour imagery over Western Europe, from NASA GIBS. Each layer carries its own date.
The interactive map needs JavaScript; the layer list and sources are below.
Layers 4
Water now, for this page
Keyboard, with the map focused
Hold Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll to zoom
Latest available
NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
Loading the latest NASA imagery.
Drag to move. Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll, pinch or the buttons to zoom; hover for the values under the pointer; reset returns to the region.
Water now, framed on Western Europe.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date. They are indicators, not assessments of any place.
Data: NASA GIBS · ASTER GDEM · Blue Marble · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Natural Earth · NASA EONET · NASA HLS S30Sources and licences
- We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- VIIRS Black Marble night-time lights, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; distributed by the NASA Level-1 and Atmosphere Archive and Distribution System (LAADS DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- VIIRS near-real-time products (flood, land surface temperature, snow cover, corrected reflectance), NASA LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University. 2018. Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Population Density, Revision 11. NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). doi:10.7927/H49C6VHW. CC BY 4.0
- GPM IMERG precipitation, NASA Precipitation Processing System; distributed by the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- SMAP Level 4 soil moisture and snow mass, NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office; distributed by the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center DAAC; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA LP DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). Cite as: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (2019). ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003. doi:10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003. NASA open data
- Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Public domain
- © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via NASA GIBS (coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). ODbL
- Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- Context on the globe and flat map: coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names from NASA GIBS reference layers (OpenStreetMap data, ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors); Blue Marble imagery as an optional base; 3D terrain and the elevation read-out from the ASTER GDEM elevation colour index (5 m to 200 m classes, exaggerated for legibility). Boundaries are drawn as published and imply no position on any territory.
- Live events: NASA Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET); events are indicative and keep their original source links.
- Live: NASA EONET Events are indicative, not authority warnings.
- Observed (EO): NASA HLS S30 (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2026). We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).
- NASA GIBS: We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).
- River discharge forecast, 30 days with range (GloFAS via Open-Meteo): Contains modified Copernicus Emergency Management Service information 2026; not a flood warning.
- Past year, daily temperature (ERA5 via Open-Meteo): Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
- Past year, daily temperature and sunshine (NASA POWER): These data were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) POWER Project funded through the NASA Earth Science/Applied Science Program..
- Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (https://open-meteo.com/), licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
- Optional layers (14 sources in the layer list: live, forecast, observed and context) print their provider credit on the map and here when switched on; forecasts are model output and derived indices are estimates.
Layers and dates
- Night-time lights, daily: VIIRS Black Marble (VNP46A2), NASA LAADS DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
- Flood water, 3-day composite: VIIRS Global Flood Product, NASA LANCE · 14 Oct 2026
- Population density, 2020: Population: CIESIN, Columbia University, Gridded Population of the World v4.11 (2018), NASA SEDAC, CC BY 4.0 · static
- True colour: VIIRS NOAA-20 corrected reflectance, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
- Precipitation rate, daily mean: GPM IMERG, NASA GES DISC · 12 Oct 2026
- Root-zone soil moisture, 0 to 100 cm: SMAP Level 4, NASA NSIDC DAAC · 11 Oct 2026
Water assets depend on power and protect health.
Asset studies are designed for the Global Sector Risk and Resilience series. Risk and resilience practice for water systems is set out in AWWA J100 and performance in the IWA indicators; asset data stays with operators.
- Asset condition summaries operators publish.
- Failure records by cause.
Asset criticality register.
The screen a team would use to follow this subject: its measures, states and decisions. Names are examples and values are illustrative.
Asset criticality register
Water and wastewater assets · Lifeline system A · Register v8
Critical assets
| SS-12 | Electricity | Tier 1 | Flood 1-in-100 | 15 |
| WTW-2 | Water | Tier 1 | Flood 1-in-100 | 39 |
| DX-1 | Telecom | Tier 2 | Heat | 11 |
| H-Campus | Health | Tier 1 | Earthquake | 32 |
| PN-3 | Transport | Tier 2 | Storm surge | n/a |
SS-12 dependencies
- Upstream
- Transmission L4, L7
- Downstream
- WTW-2, H-Campus, DX-1
- Restoration target
- 19 h
- Owner
- Asset owner
Dependency graph
red: SS-12 and its dependants
Restoration time by sector
What is measured, and how well.
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Water main breaks | breaks per hundred kilometres of main per year | annual | Utility asset records | OBSERVED |
| Non-revenue water | percent of system input volume | annual | Utility water balance | ESTIMATED |
| Continuity of supply | hours of supply per day | monthly | Utility service records | REPORTED |
| Sewer overflow events | count per year | annual | Overflow monitoring | OBSERVED |
| Treatment plants with backup power | percent of plants | annual | Asset registers | DECLARED |
| Drinking water compliance | percent of samples meeting standards | monthly | Regulatory sampling | Published statistics |
| Pipe renewal rate | percent of network renewed per year | annual | Capital programme records | REPORTED |
Model water and wastewater assets as a system. Run the cascade.
Assembled from the Nexus Standards area profile Critical infrastructure and critical entities: the hazards it names, the systems and sectors that carry the loss, the controls that dampen it and the data that observe it. Choose the components, pick an initiating hazard and step through the cascade. The Map view places the run on an example geography with open data. Every coupling weight is a stated assumption you can change. A teaching model, not a forecast, an assessment or a certification. To model a place of your own choosing, open the full System Builder.
Hazards
- Dam failure
- River flood (set off downstream)
- Flash flood (set off downstream)
- Mass displacement (set off downstream)
- Widespread power outage (set off downstream)
- Water supply shortfall (set off downstream)
Systems and couplings
- Critical infrastructure and critical entities
- Energy risk standards Dependency
- Space weather, spectrum and timing risk standards Common-mode dependency
- Compound and cascading hazard standards Cascade
- Cyber resilience and digital operational resilience Common driver
Controls
NS-0Constitution and principlesNS-3Risk record UNIs (grammar, legacy crosswalk, allocation authority)NS-9Contextual UNIs (deployments, instances, programme instances)NS-10Policies and clauses (machine-readable obligations: definition, binding, evaluation and enforcement)NS-11Verification and monitoring (evidence, attestations, zero-trust conformance observation)NRS-H61Hazard family: Cascading failure (NHS-1 sys.cascade)NRS-H94Hazard family: Systemic cyber events (NHS-1 cyber.systemic-cyber)NRS-H107Hazard family: Digital infrastructure concentration and monoculture (NHS-1 tech.digital-concentration)NRS-K31Domain pack profile: Cyber national resilience (DOMAIN-031)NRS-K36Domain pack profile: Critical infrastructure (DOMAIN-036)NRS-K48Domain pack profile: Financial system resilience (DOMAIN-048)
Observation
- OpenStreetMap planet and replication (listed for reference)
- Global Power Plant Database (listed for reference)
- NASA Black Marble night-time lights (VNP46) (listed for reference)
- Global Human Settlement Layer (listed for reference)
- Damage to critical infrastructure attributed to disasters
- Number of disruptions to basic services attributed to disasters
- Proportion of the rural population who live within 2 km of an all-season road
Example geography
- Europe: 113 hexagonal cells
- Night lights tonight, outages (VIIRS Day/Night Band), NASA GIBS
- Surface water through cloud, 30 m (OPERA DSWx-S1 radar), NASA GIBS
- Rain rate, last half hour (IMERG), NASA GIBS
- Surface soil moisture (SMAP), NASA GIBS
Where the evidence comes from.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene | Household access to safely managed water and sanitation services | Open, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO |
| IBNET international benchmarking network (World Bank) | Utility performance indicators such as coverage, continuity and non-revenue water | Public, World Bank terms (to check) |
| National drinking water regulator reports | Compliance, incidents and enforcement | Public records, licence per regulator |
| WHO Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality | Health-based targets and water safety planning | Public, WHO terms of use |
| Utility asset management plans | Asset condition, renewal and risk where published | Licence per utility |
The sector signature of water and wastewater assets.
The sectors water and wastewater assets touches and how strongly they depend on each other: what a study has to observe and model together.
Signature
Water and its partners
Water gives irrigation to food (0.8), cooling water and hydropower to energy (0.6) and environmental flows to biodiversity (0.6).
W · E · I · F · H · B
- Sectors
- 4 of 6
- Relations
- 6 of 15
- Coupling
- 0.43 share of total
Strongest relations in play
- Food → Biodiversity · land conversion0.6
- Water → Energy · cooling water and hydropower0.6
- Water → Food · irrigation0.8
- Water → Biodiversity · environmental flows0.6
Who decides, and what the evidence serves.
Critical Infrastructure prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Water and wastewater utilities | Which assets to renew, reinforce or protect first | Break rates; condition analyses; flood exposure |
| Economic and drinking water regulators | What renewal and resilience investment to allow in tariffs | Asset condition evidence; compliance records |
| Local governments | How to plan for supply loss and overflows in floods | Continuity and overflow evidence |
Outputs this topic produces
- Asset condition and renewal analyses using utility records
- Backup power and chemical supply reviews for treatment plants
- Overflow and flood exposure assessments for sewer systems
- Continuity evidence notes for regulators
How water and wastewater assets is modelled, measured and tested.
The model, its assumptions, its data and its uncertainty, in the form a scientist or engineer would check. Structures follow published methods. The values drawn are illustrative, not findings.
System model
The couplings between the systems in water and wastewater assets: signs of influence, a reinforcing and a balancing loop, and cross-links where stress jumps.
What experts ask.
- Which parts of a water system have no redundancy, and which customers depend on them?
- How long can supply continue during a power outage, given storage and gravity feed?
- How do ageing pipes, pressure loss and contamination risk interact during disruption?
- How do flooding, drought and heat affect treatment and distribution assets?
- How should service be restored when power, chemicals and access are all constrained?
Drivers and failure pathways.
Most water systems pump water and sewage, so they depend heavily on electricity. Storage in reservoirs and towers buys time, but the buffer varies widely with topography and design. Treatment depends on a steady supply of chemicals, delivered by road, and on control systems that rely on communications. Each of these is an external dependency that can fail independently of the water network itself.
Failure in distribution creates its own risks. Loss of pressure allows contaminated groundwater into pipes, so restoration requires flushing and testing before water can be declared safe. Wastewater failures can flood streets and pollute rivers. Ageing networks with high leakage and frequent bursts have less margin for shocks, and climate change is altering both flood exposure and the reliability of raw water sources.
Hydrological science and water resource management are studied at Water Nexus.
How it is studied.
- 01
Hydraulic modelling
Network models simulate pressure and flow under failure scenarios, showing which service areas lose supply first.
- 02
Asset condition analysis
Inspection data and statistical failure models estimate deterioration, drawing on reliability and resilience engineering.
- 03
Monitoring
Pressure, flow and water quality sensors, studied through sensors, IoT and observation networks, detect disruption early.
- 04
Limits
Buried assets are poorly recorded in many systems, condition data is sparse, and models depend on demand assumptions that change during crises.
How it is studied, and what the methods cannot say.
- 01Reliability and resilience engineeringResilience metrics for lifelines · Reliability analysis of networks · Restoration planningApplied here
- 02Sensors, IoT and observation networksStructural health monitoring · Leak and pressure monitoring · Grid sensingApplied here
- 03Network science and contagionCritical node and link analysis · Interdependent network models · Redundancy assessmentApplied here
- 04Optimisation and operations researchResilience investment portfolios · Restoration scheduling · Network design under uncertaintyApplied here
- 05Structural and earthquake engineeringFragility of infrastructure components · Retrofit of critical structures · Post-event inspectionApplied here
Where this page's references lead.
The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.
Questions and answers.
What is non-revenue water?
Why are boil-water advisories issued after outages?
What is a water safety plan?
Why can water not be supplied as soon as power returns?
Does the platform assess individual utilities?
How does climate change affect water assets?
Who reviews coverage of this topic?
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