With climate change looming, asset management is more important than ever

With climate change bringing unprecedented environmental challenges to communities across the United States, local administrators are increasingly facing pressure to keep up with evolving infrastructure needs. This is a difficult and ongoing endeavor—and one that’s making asset management more important than ever.

From roadways and bridges to sewer systems and buildings, every piece of infrastructure has a different timeline of needs. And because much of America’s infrastructure resulted from the New Deal in the late 1930s and 1940s, a lot of it needs to be repaired.

“Infrastructure is aging already,” said Ken Dircks, infrastructure and transportation pillar lead at Ernest & Young, a professional services organization. “Climate change just accelerates that. If you think about water, storms, fire, heat, these are all things that accelerate the aging of infrastructure.”

The historic federal investment made over the last few years through legislation like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is another impetus that’s increased focus on asset management. While there’s money available for all kinds of infrastructure projects, there’s a shortage of people in town halls across the United States. Revamping asset management practices to streamline processes is one way local governments can make up ground.

“They need more people. You want to get back ahead of keeping your assets in shape?” Dircks said, “You’ve got to do all of that with fewer people.”

Investing some of the federal funding into workforce development programs is an option that could be a part of the solution for local governments. Dircks stressed that it’s vital for local governments to maintain a comprehensive understanding of the condition of infrastructure assets at any given time..

“The challenge is really: ‘How can you use some of your money to get your government agency to a place where they’re operating and maintaining a place that’s ahead of the curve?’” Dircks said. “If you get very good at that, you can get to a place where everyone wants to be: None of your assets break. Even with fewer human resources, you can spend some of the money to improve that situation.”

Digital programs that rely on mapping and GIS technology, and predictive maintenance, are integral pieces of any municipal or county asset management system. Modern smart infrastructure can stream real-time data to control centers, letting administrators keep an eye on potential problems in real time. But programs are only as effective as the data that’s inputted into them. And collecting data requires “hard human work,” like documenting the locations of streetlights and sewer drains, Dircks continued. 

“With fewer human resources, you can spend some of the (federal) money to improve that situation,” Dircks said, noting predictive maintenance tools that can tell administrators “‘based on this data and this predictive algorithm, these are the five assets you should replace next.’”

The upfront administrative effort is worthwhile in the longrun. Overlaying different infrastructure data into a singular place lets different departments align their maintenance priorities onto the same timeline.

“If you have a very accurate map of your infrastructure that includes data from many different disciplines–water, broadband, sewer—you can see that, at any given site, you have six or seven assets going on,” Dircks said. Knowing everything that’s going might allow two different departments to complete required maintenance on disperate infrastructure at the same time, minimizing community disruption and saving on costs.

It’s not just data documenting the physical condition of assets that’s being taken into account these days, Dircks said. Especially with climate change making conditions hotter and storms more extreme, socio-economic data is being taken into account more than ever. And as climate change continues to put pressure on communities, it’s a trend Dircks says will only increase.

“It’s not about the asphalt and the road, it’s about who are the humans that need to get on it, and what are they trying to get to,” Dircks said. “If you add a dimension of community health … the needs of a group to get to healthcare, it could change what asset is next.”