Illustrative: potential-flow streamlines around a body with tracer bands moving at the local speed and a wake that sways downstream
Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium · Infrastructure, Energy and Industry · Department of Utility Networks
Drinking water, distribution, sewers and treatment as lifelines
Water and wastewater systems
Water utilities deliver a service that only becomes visible when it fails: a pressure drop, a contamination event, a sewer overflow after a storm.
- Department
- Department of Utility Networks
- Courses
- In preparation
- Levels
- In development
- Labs
- In development
- Water supply, treatment and distribution networks
- Wastewater collection, treatment and reuse
- Hydraulic modelling of networks
- Asset condition, leakage and renewal
- Water safety plans
- Drought, flood and contamination risk to utilities
- Dependence on power, chemicals and telecommunications
- Cyber and physical security of water systems
- Combined sewer overflows and stormwater
Build a twin of any place
Search any place or open the world; the layers and generators follow water and wastewater systems on the planet map, the globe and in 3D.
Infrastructure, Energy and IndustryAny placeTwin builder
- Terrain 0 to 523 m
- 83,815 buildings in the box
- 5,085 footprints in the core, 2,796 with an estimated height
- Roads 176 km
- Rail 99 km
- 57 substations
- 4 port
- 2 airport
- 5 hospitals
- 8 railway stations
- 4 water works
- 2 power plants, 202 MW
Drag to move, right drag or Shift with a drag to turn and tilt, Ctrl with the wheel to zoom. Keyboard: arrows move, Shift with arrows turn and tilt, + and – zoom, 0 resets, V steps through the views, Escape clears.
Places5
Layers5
iCredits
- Terrain Surface height in whole metres on a grid of about a hundred and twenty metres, read from one overview of the 30 m product at build time. Produced using Copernicus WorldDEM-30 © DLR e.V. 2010–2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014–2018 provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved. read 2026-10-17. Estimate: A surface model: trees and roofs are in the heights. Relief is exaggerated for legibility and the factor is printed on the stage.
- Buildings Footprints of the central city extruded to their tagged height, and a count of buildings per 150 m cell over the rest of the box. © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. data as of 2026-10-17. Estimate: Where a building has no height or levels tag its height is an estimate by use, flagged in the data and shown in a lighter tone.
- Roads and rail Motorways, trunk, primary and secondary roads and the railway lines, with their length in kilometres. © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. data as of 2026-07-15.
- Lifeline assets Substations with their tagged voltage, port land, the airport, hospitals, railway stations and water works, each as one point. © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. data as of 2026-05-31.
- Power plants Every plant inside the box, with capacity in MW and primary fuel, from the 2021 release. Power plants: Global Power Plant Database v1.3.0 (2021), World Resources Institute and partners, CC BY 4.0. release 1.3.0, 2021-06-02. Estimate: A 2021 snapshot, never current operating status.
Why this place: Wellington's regional lifelines programme, which began with a published 1991 case study of its lifelines in earthquakes, is a reference case for lifelines engineering, so the twin teaches on the place where the practice was named. One box of about twenty by eighteen kilometres holds a dense harbour city on steep terrain, its port and airport, the rail terminus and the Hutt corridor, the substations that feed the city and two wind farms in the western hills, so every lifeline family is present and legible at one scale. Data quality: OpenStreetMap building and road coverage of New Zealand is complete, Copernicus DEM GLO-30 covers the terrain at thirty metres, and the Global Power Plant Database lists the plants.
Flat plan of the same data. The 3D twin opens on devices that can draw it, once its data and code have been checked; the numbers are the same either way.
The boundaries, names and designations shown do not imply any judgement on the legal status of any territory, or any endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Countries: Natural Earth (public domain).
Water now in the Zambezi Basin
Rain, flood water and root-zone soil moisture from NASA satellites and models, with long-term water stress, over the Zambezi Basin.
The interactive map needs JavaScript; the layer list and sources are below.
Layers 2
Water now
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 the Zambezi Basin.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 EONETSources 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 H3 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 H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- 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 H3 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 H3 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 H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- GRACE and GRACE-FO JPL mascon solution, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; distributed by the NASA Physical Oceanography DAAC (PO.DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- GHRSST Level 4 MUR analyses, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; distributed by the NASA Physical Oceanography DAAC (PO.DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 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 H3 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 H3 cells where shown (modified). ODbL
- Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 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.
- Globe: MapLibre GL JS 6.9.1, BSD-3-Clause, © MapLibre contributors.
- Live events: NASA Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET); events are indicative and keep their original source links.
- 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 (13 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
- Precipitation rate, daily mean: GPM IMERG, NASA GES DISC · 12 Oct 2026
- Flood water, 3-day composite: VIIRS Global Flood Product, NASA LANCE · 14 Oct 2026
- Root-zone soil moisture, 0 to 100 cm: SMAP Level 4, NASA NSIDC DAAC · 11 Oct 2026
- Snow cover: VIIRS NOAA-20 NDSI, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
- Water storage anomaly, monthly: GRACE-FO JPL mascons, NASA JPL PO.DAAC · July 2022
- Sea surface temperature anomaly: GHRSST MUR25, NASA JPL PO.DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
- True colour: VIIRS NOAA-20 corrected reflectance, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
The subject, methods and measures and debates and bodies
The field and its scope
For utility engineers and managers, public health officers, regulators and resilience planners who need to assess the hydraulics, asset condition, dependencies and hazard exposure of drinking water and wastewater systems.
Quantities and units
Methods and their limits
Each method is listed with what it assumes and where it fails.
What the field debates
Bodies that set practice, and the data they publish
Bodies and standards are named so learners can find and apply their published work; the Academy teaches their use and links to the publisher, and no affiliation is implied.
From an ageing main to a renewal rate: bursts, real losses and the pipes replaced each year
A network's burst rate per hundred kilometres rises as its mains age; bursts drive real losses and interruptions; replacing a share of the network each year removes the worst pipes and slows the rise; the renewal rate is the number a utility and its regulator decide.
Sources: Kleiner and Rajani, Comprehensive review of structural deterioration of water mains: statistical models (2001); Kumpel and Nelson, Intermittent water supply: prevalence, practice, and microbial water quality (2016); Butler et al., Reliable, resilient and sustainable water management: the Safe and SuRe approach (2014); Bartram et al., Water Safety Plan Manual: step-by-step risk management for drinking-water suppliers (2009).
How water and wastewater systems connects the sectors
Select corners to build a signature, then hover a line to read what each sector gives and receives.
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
At a glance, hub and courses
Water and wastewater systems at a glance
risksacademy.cominfrastructure-energydiscipline
- Open, 0
- In preparation, 0
- Subtopics, 9
Research and tools
Research and preprints as they are published, by discipline, with the faculty's other tools.
The hub lists the newest research and preprints for Water and wastewater systems, each with its source and date. Open the research hub
Courses in this discipline
Courses for this discipline are in development; until they open, study it through the connected courses and open lessons below.
The course catalogue lists every open course of the Academy.
How Water and wastewater systems is taught, as a process you can run
Press Play to run this process from this page's own data.
Practice, learning and connections
How technology helps and what risk it brings
Achievements in this discipline
Course achievements
One for each course with this as its primary discipline, earned when you pass the course's assessed activities.
An achievement is a record of the learning completed and assessed here. How recognition works.
Where the subject is practised
A field platform page on this subject is in development.
The two Foundry systems where it is practised
- FoundryNXS-NET systemWater networks are utility networks with continuity dutiesContinuity room, Topology room
- NXS-GRX systemWater service disruption cascades into health and economyCascades room
Foundry system pages describe what each system and its rooms are designed to do; the courses teach the methods these systems apply.
Across the ecosystem
Take part in Infrastructure, Energy and Industry
Start from who you are.
Core references and where to begin
Start with Bartram, then Lambert, then Kleiner.
Questions, answers and key terms
Is study here free?
What does completing a course give me?
Where do the data and the places come from?
How do I take part beyond the courses in water and wastewater systems?
Key terms
Water safety plan
A risk assessment and management approach covering every step from catchment to consumer, promoted by WHO.
Non-revenue water
Water produced but not billed, through leakage, metering error or unauthorised use.
Combined sewer overflow
A discharge of untreated sewage and stormwater when a combined sewer's capacity is exceeded.
Hydraulic model
A model of pressures and flows in a pipe network used to plan and operate it.
Contribute evidence from this page.
Reports is the Consortium's quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.
Around Water and wastewater systems
Prepare with a related course
Open courses in connected disciplines teach the methods this discipline will build on.