New WERF Research Project Enables Better Communication Among Utilities

The Water Environment Research Foundation (WERF) has recently launched WATERiD, an online living knowledge base that permits utilities to easily share their experiences, information and lessons learned in managing the nation’s water infrastructure.

Developed by Dr. Sunil Sinha, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech, WATERiD will help the nation address the challenges associated with the aging and deteriorating wastewater and water infrastructure.

"WATERiD is unique in that it allows utilities to share their 'lessons learned' and thus avoid repeating mistakes," explains Dr. Daniel Woltering, WERF director of research.

This sharing is accomplished through a “wiki”-like capability for utilities to submit their information on cost, performance and capability of various technologies. Then, utilities can access all of the information necessary to assess whether a practice or technology is right for their application. “Support and enthusiasm from the industry has been vital in WATERiD’s development,” Woltering continued.

Aging infrastructure has been identified as a national need in recent years. “Having an expansive knowledge base for condition assessment and renewal technologies that can assist drinking water and wastewater entities to more effectively put comprehensive asset management into practice and meet their Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act requirements fits well with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) long-standing research investment into managing our Nation’s water infrastructure,” said Thomas F. Speth, Ph.D., P.E., director of Water Supply & Water Resources Division, National Risk Management Research Laboratory, U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development.

WATERiD can be accessed from the WERF website at http://www.werf.org or at http://www.waterid.org. Funding for the project was provided through WERF under a cooperative agreement with the U.S. EPA.