UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR) has released a landmark report aimed at tackling the lack of a unified approach to quantifying and valuing asset health across the sector.

The water industry faces increasing pressure to demonstrate resilience, and UKWIR’s Common Definition & Calculation of Asset Health framework provides the first practical roadmap for consistent asset assessment across the UK and Ireland.

Management of asset health is a recognised concern due to the lack of an agreed approach to quantifying and valuing it. While several definitions of asset health exist, with a degree of commonality, there has been a lack of alignment in how it is assessed.

The UKWIR project set out to create a practical framework for how asset health is defined, measured and used, helping water companies build a clearer and more joined-up picture of asset performance over time.

Mike Rose, chief executive, UKWIR said,

“The benefits of UKWIR’s Common Definition & Calculation of Asset Health framework for the water sector are clear. It provides an agreed definition of asset health for adoption across water companies, supports a deeper and more consistent understanding of asset health, shares good practice on monitoring and investment, and shows how asset health information can be visualised in a simple way to support decisions.

“I encourage asset managers and other senior leaders to bring the framework into use across their operations, which will ultimately help improve the health of water and wastewater assets throughout the UK and Ireland.”

Understanding health

A clear understanding of asset condition is essential both for investment and planning within water companies, and as part of the regime of measures and incentives set by regulators. Research and analysis for the UKWIR asset health project, showed that the same definition was not effectively serving both uses, and given public and regulator attention on asset health, the framework recommends that the standard definition of asset health aligns more closely with the regulatory definition.

The study made several findings and proposals in relation to requirements to adopt a precise measurable definition of asset health. It also suggests next steps for further development of asset health assessment.

Key recommendations include:

• All elements of asset health, including data, metrics and interventions, must have defined owners within an organisation
• The water industry should move toward a single definition to ensure direct comparisons between companies are possible
• Companies are encouraged to map their existing asset health structures to the UKWIR framework, making it possible to refine them and share cross-sector learning

Collaborative approach

The report is especially valuable because it brings industry expertise, good practice and regulator input together in one practical approach. A process of review and feedback by water companies including in-person workshops were used to refine and improve the report. Regulators were also engaged to test alignment with their perspectives on asset health.

This approach focused on agreeing a common taxonomy, improving the way asset health is assessed and monitored, and setting a roadmap for future deterioration modelling. This gives the sector a stronger platform for collaboration and better-informed decision-making.

“A particularly positive finding is the fact there is already broad consensus around the recommended definition of asset health, and there is a strong agreement on what good asset health metrics should look like: clear, measurable, comparable and relevant,” added Rose.

The project aligns directly with the UK government’s white paper - A new vision for water, published in January, which marks a significant shift toward mandatory resilience and expert-led maintenance. UKWIR’s asset health report provides the precise metrics needed for the white paper’s proposed new regulatory regime, giving the sector a shared language to identify and intervene before infrastructure problems take hold.

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