Towards a functional infrastructure management for the 21 century

Over the last 5 years wet infrastructure management in the Netherlands has gone through a revolutionary development. In the quest for methods to improve the way account is given on how national policy is implemented, the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management initiated a process to change traditional technical wet infrastructure management into modern functional wet infrastructure management. In the traditional approach the programmes for management and maintenance were mainly determined by expert opinions about the technical state of the infrastructure at the operational level. There was no direct link with national policy objectives, resulting in a lack of control regarding the implementation of wet infrastructure policy and the spending of tax money. Functional management implicates management is based upon the purpose the water system serves.