An ontology of condition assessment technologies for sewer networks

Ageing infrastructure, budgetary constraints, economic downturns, regulatory requirements, the high level of service requirements and a declining rate of reinvestment require effective asset management of sewer collection systems. Inspection and condition assessment is one of the core and costly elements of effective asset management. The availability of many sophisticated condition assessment technologies and lack of common understanding of them in the municipal environment require formalising the knowledge related to these technologies using an ontological approach to support the development of applications for effective selection of the most appropriate technology for sewer condition assessment. The purpose of this research work is to develop an ontology of condition assessment technologies for sewer networks – Cats_Onto – using the Ontology Web Language following a seven-step methodology. The outcome of this research work is a comprehensive knowledge representation in the form of an ontology that will be used to develop applications (beyond the scope of this paper) for the selection of the most appropriate technology for sewer condition assessment. The knowledge representation is verified using automated built-in reasoners in the Protégé ontology editor and validated by industry experts.