Development of sustainable water infrastructure: A proper understanding of water pipe failure

The need for sustainable water infrastructure systems continues to grow as clean water is essential for daily life. Despite efforts to sustain water distribution networks (WDNs), they often experience frequent failures, leading to several environmental, social, and economic consequences. Previous studies have investigated the causes of water pipe failure in different contexts. However, a comprehensive and holistic understanding of these causes is lacking in the literature. Therefore, this study contributes to the existing knowledge by presenting 1) a scientometric analysis of the previous literature, 2) a systematic discussion of the causes, 3) an Analytical Hierarchy Process model and fault tree logic to prioritize and map the causes, respectively, and 4) an overview of techniques used in developing failure prediction models. The scientometric analysis reveals that little attention has been paid generally to the operational causes of water pipe failure. The same trend was supported by the systematic review, which divides a total of 33 causes into three main categories: pipe-related, environment-related, and operation-related causes. This study gives insights to academics and practitioners working in this domain on the contributions of various factors to the failure of water pipes, which would be useful in designing a sustainable and resilient WDN.