Defining Public Asset Management for Municipal Water Utilities

摘要

The concept of asset management has many forms, but for utilities the focus is mainly on infrastructure asset management. However, with 85% of US water utilities owned or controlled by governments and municipalities, asset management falls under the larger umbrella of public asset management. In general, public asset management incorporates the management of all things that are of value to a jurisdiction, its mission and purpose, and citizen's expectations. Geographic information system- (GIS-) centric public asset management has a foundation that standardizes data and allows interoperability, providing users the capability to reuse, coordinate, and share information in an efficient and effective manner. A GIS platform combined with the overall public asset management umbrella of both hard (physical) assets and soft assets helps remove the traditional silos of structured municipal functions.