Linking safe water supply to catchments’ risk assessment and water treatment – a case study based on Águas do Douro e Paiva asset management

Abstract

Provision of safe water is indispensable for life and its management must be rational and sustainable. Most of the technical and managing efforts to ensure this mission have been addressed to water treatment and related distribution system. Yet, catchments represent an essential part of Water Treatment Plants (WTP) and their characteristics can incorporate significant vulnerabilities that may compromise system?s performance. An asset management system promotes periodic risk assessment procedures to estimate assets? performance and evaluate renewal needs. Extending this proven methodology to catchments, identifying and adapting their particular characteristics and organization´s specificity, can represent a drive for decision making and investment strategies. The present research follows this approach evaluating a case study with eight catchments in a Portuguese utility.