Appendix B: Damage Report Path Entry to DIRT Report

Whether interpreting written analysis, tables or figures in the DIRT Report, it is important to be mindful of what the numbers represent. To help explain how we transform reports into the analysis in the annual DIRT Report and online dashboard, the following describes the path damage reports follow:

1.

2.

3.

4. DIRT users entered 530,945 underground damage reports and 3,206 near miss reports from the United States and Canada for 2019.

A program was run to match and weight reports of the same event. This compressed the totals to 453,766 unique underground damages and 2,524 unique near misses. Near misses are set aside for separate analysis.11 The online DIRT dashboard is based on the number of unique damages (453,766 with no filters applied), as are all figures and tables in this report, except those associated with Data Quality Index (DQI).

CGA’s DIRT Report consultant generates an estimate of annual damages in the U.S. Recognizing that DIRT is voluntary and not all damage events are entered in DIRT, the consultant uses statistical methods to extrapolate, from the matched/weighted damage reports entered in DIRT, an estimate of damages not entered in DIRT. This process produced a total of 532,000 estimated U.S. damages.

For 2019, the U.S. estimate of damages (532,000) is remarkably close to the number of underground damages initially entered into DIRT (530,945). Keep in mind however, the 530,945 includes reports from Canada and consists of roughly 15% multiple reports of the same event.

11 See separate report at: https://commongroundalliance.com/Tools-Resources/ResourcesLibrary/searchCustom/true/PID/924/FilterMenu/973/FilterCategories/39