CARE-W is a joint European initiative to develop a framework for water network rehabilitation. The project has been supported by the European Commission under the Fifth Framework Programme for Research and Development and had a budget of 3 million euros.The aim of CARE-W was to support European water companies in their decisions on upgrading their water supply. The system has been developed for and is tested by cities representing all parts of Europe. The project group is now ready to use it for practical support to end-users.CARE-W consists of software dealing with fundamental instruments for estimating the current and future condition of water networks, including tools to assess performance indicators (PI), to predict pipe failures (FAIL) and to calculate water supply reliability (REL). Based on the results of these tools, long-term investment needs are estimated (LTP tool) as well as annual rehabilitation projects selected and ranked (ARP tool). The tools are operated jointly within the "CARE-W Manager", which also contains facilities for using pipe network databases, geographical information systems (GIS) and input/output routines. The results from using the procedures are presented by reports, in tables and graphically.