If the 1.5 million motorbikes that cram the streets of Ho Chi Minh City everyday queued one behind the other, they would still cover less than one tenth of the local water distribution network, which serves more than eight million residents and stretches around 33,000 kilometers. In just 50 years, Ho Chi Minh City has transformed from a simple economy based on fishing into the economic heart of Vietnam and the country’s largest city. Such significant growth threatens the rapidly aging urban infrastructure, including the city’s water network. Ho Chi Minh City lost nearly 30 percent of its clean water in 2016 through leaking and damaged pipes. Many sections of the water distribution infrastructure are old. Some sections were built more than 30 years ago, while others even date back to the colonial era. More than 150 million cubic meters of water went to waste last year. In order to keep up with the rapid pace of urbanization and meet the target of reducing the water leakage to only 10 percent by 2020, the local utility Saigon Water Corporation (SAWACO) and ABB recently undertook a major renovation of the city’s water distribution network.