The hidden crisis beneath our feet

Below the streets of cities around the world, there is growing cause for concern. Sewer pipes are failing — with possibly disastrous consequences. Nobody wants the messy aftermath of overflow, blockages, backups and environmental damage from failing sewer pipes in their neighbourhood. If that’s not concerning enough, pipes are typically replaced or rehabilitated after backups and overflows have occurred, leaving utilities under immense pressure to prevent people’s worst sewerage nightmares from becoming reality.

As pipes age and budgets tighten, utilities must innovate to overcome the USD 625 billion maintenance upgrade costs needed in the United States alone. The situation is similar in other parts of the world. Considerable water infrastructure investment needs are driven by rapid urbanisation and population growth, compounded by funding constraints, regulation challenges and a skilled labour shortage.

And the stakes couldn’t be higher. Communities face significant service disruptions and skyrocketing maintenance costs that strain municipal budgets. For utilities like Aqua Pennsylvania, which provides water and wastewater services, these challenges represent both a threat and an opportunity for transformation.

Michael Convery, Director of Engineering at Aqua Pennsylvania found himself facing a situation that impacts utility executives worldwide. His teams were looking for more efficient ways to plan and prioritise capital improvements. Water and wastewater utilities are sitting on volumes of CCTV data and they are constantly producing more inspection data of their systems. The problem is that many organisations struggle with organising and utilising all that information.

Never before have utilities possessed such detailed views into their underground networks. Using sophisticated robotic cameras that can navigate the smallest pipes, they are capturing high-definition footage of every crack, joint and potential failure point. Yet this treasure trove of information can feel like a burden rather than an asset.

Usually, pipe inspection files are delivered from the field on a portable storage device, resulting in data being squirreled away in various office locations, desktops or copied to arbitrary folders on a server — not the easiest way to utilise volumes of data.

Traditional workflows meant that specialised teams would spend months manually reviewing footage, creating reports that are then aggregated and reviewed by decision makers. Meanwhile, pipe failures would continue, emergency repairs consumed ever-larger portions of maintenance budgets and long-term capital planning remained more art than science.

The goal was to develop a system that could manage Aqua’s volumes of data but also harness it to make decisions for pipe rehabilitation and Capital Improvement Planning (CIP). The "aha moment" came when we envisioned something that had never been attempted at this scale: integrating two powerful but traditionally separate platforms – Autodesk's Info360 Asset and Esri's ArcGIS Online. Autodesk and Esri partnered to transform infrastructure project workflows, bridging platforms to support decision makers in planning, designing, building and managing a more sustainable and resilient future.

The technical challenges were immense. Autodesk's Info360 Asset excelled at managing volumes of inspection data, pipe condition analysis and project planning, while Esri's GIS platform dominates spatial data management and enterprise-wide data visualisation. It was about betting on more than just technology integration. The team were positioning themselves as pioneers in a scalable solution that could transform how water utilities approach asset management across multiple systems at state, regional and local levels.

The game-changer was both technical and cultural. Previous approaches relied on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) professionals who also knew risk management, project prioritisation and how to apply these concepts within the software solution. Handing over the keys to non-GIS users who could set up risk models, decision trees and generate results opened the door to newfound, unforeseen efficiencies. Frontline managers who had spent decades relying on intuition and experience could access the same sophisticated analytics that previously required specialised GIS training.

The efficiency gains translated directly to the bottom line. The business impact was immediate and measurable: assessment time dropped from months and days to hours or minutes. Resources previously tied up in data analysis could be reallocated to actual infrastructure improvements. The decision tree functionality gave workers a replicable mind map for processes and procedures, allowing them to create systems that could identify priority pipes for rehabilitation contracts or understand CIP budget allocations by individual system, division or entire state.

Pursuing a data-led integration like this represents a broader digital transformation — and not just for Aqua. Right now, we are seeing this play out across the water industry. AI-powered analysis promises to automatically interpret CCTV footage, moving utilities from reactive emergency repairs toward predictive maintenance strategies. The same data infrastructure supporting asset management can power digital twin hydraulic models for extreme weather preparation, enabling utilities to use identical datasets for both asset management and surge analysis.

The strategic importance extends beyond operational efficiency. The more high-quality data you have to make decisions, the better. It also helps you present, justify and convince people that this is a more prudent way of spending. It becomes crucial when utilities need to submit long-term infrastructure program plans to regulatory bodies.

Water utilities have become critical data infrastructure owners that support broader urban intelligence and climate resilience strategies. Access to accessible, information-rich data could better serve smart city integration, helping to make more informed planning decisions by providing continuous streams of information on infrastructure performance, environmental conditions and resource availability.

The Aqua Pennsylvania model offers lessons extending far beyond water and wastewater utilities. Transportation agencies managing ageing infrastructure, energy companies maintaining pipeline networks and telecommunication providers all face similar data integration challenges.

The partnership strategy reveals that integrating complementing technologies can create more value than choosing single platforms. Success requires cultural change management alongside technical implementation, transforming decades-old workflows while maintaining operational continuity. Most importantly, this case demonstrates how operational data becomes strategic advantage, with utilities positioning themselves as data platforms for broader urban planning initiatives.

Bringing separate pieces of the puzzle together results in powerful tools and collaborative interfaces to analyse important data needed for making informed decisions about the assets they manage. The hidden worry beneath our feet demands innovation above ground. The utilities cracking this code are the ones building tomorrow’s resilient infrastructure while gaining competitive advantages in an increasingly data-driven world.

Co-author

Eric Suesz is the co-author of this article, a content strategist for Autodesk and editor of the One Water Blog.