10.4122/1.1000001663 Vojinovic, Z. Price, R.K. Broek, W. V. den HYDROPLAN-EU Knowledge Management Framework for Urban Water Asset Management DTU Library, Technical University of Denmark (DTU) 2005 Urban drainage asset management internet-based platform knowledge dissemination Institute for Water Education, UNESCO-IHE AQUAPLUS NV en Conference presentation 10.4122/1.1000001664 text/xml 1 Urban water networks for water supply, sanitation and storm drainage provide important services, the failure of which can be very serious for the urban environment and the population. The sustainability of such assets, which frequently, if not continuously, interact with each other and with other components of urban water cycle (i.e., surface water, groundwater and receiving waters), is therefore an important issue for the asset managers. The services provided by these assets are at risk in three primary respects including structural integrity, hydraulic performance and environmental impact, which indicate the need for a total life cycle approach to managing the network assets, from planning and design, through construction and operation to replacement and disposal. This paper describes a 5th EU Framework project, named Hydroplan-EU, which covers asset management of water supply and drainage networks. This project is important because of the fact that there are more than 20,000 significant wastewater and water supply networks in Europe, most of which do not have associated with them formal asset management practices. In view of the acknowledged need for hundreds of billions of Euros in terms of capital investments in these networks throughout Europe over the next 10 years, and the need for more than 20 billion Euros on asset management activities annually, the introduction and dissemination of an internationally accepted procedure can make significant economic savings, and br