Cardno worked with IPWEA and other stakeholders to develop a practical guideline that drew together the most appropriate contemporary practice into a national approach and encourage consistency of data collection and outputs
The Guidelines adopt a risk management approach to condition assess a network of water supply and sewerage assets and arrive at proposed actions from maintenance to long term remedial works.

The scope of the project included:
- How to develop an asset condition and performance assessment strategy through adopting a risk-based prioritisation process
- Information management
- Rating systems for condition assessment
- A three level condition assessment approach:
- Level 1 - Routine operation and maintenance data assessment
- Level 2 – Formalised asset inspection/ condition assessment
- Level 3 – Detailed investigation
- Asset inspection processes
- Data analysis
- Prioritising actions resulting from the assessment process
Cardno also developed a risk-based renewals forecasting tool to accompany the guideline.