Wani, T.I.Srinivas, S.Singhal, A.Robert, D.Kodikara, J.Pramanik, B.K.Arya, S.B.2026-02-032025npj Clean Water, 2025, 8, 1, pp. -https://doi.org/10.1038/s41545-025-00467-1https://idr.nitk.ac.in/handle/123456789/19973Corrosion in buried concrete sewer pipelines remains a critical challenge for infrastructure sustainability, driven by the complex interplay of environmental, material, operational, pipe-related, and physical factors with inherent uncertainty and interdependency, aspects often overlooked previously. This study introduces a novel compounded fuzzy entropy-based approach to systematically prioritize critical corrosion-inducing factors, integrating environmental (H?S, pH, humidity, temperature, O?), material (cement content, alkalinity, w/c ratio, porosity, permeability), pipe-related (age, length, diameter, depth, slope), operational (flow velocity, water pressure, hydraulic energy loss, sewage residence time, sewer type), and physical (soil type, corrosivity, moisture, groundwater level, external load) factors. Results identify H?S (0.2073), pH (0.2055), humidity (0.2031), pipe age (0.2039), length (0.2019), cement content (0.2026), alkalinity (0.2015), water pressure (0.2073), flow velocity (0.2043), soil type (0.2042), and soil corrosivity (0.2025) as the most influential contributors, enabling targeted corrosion mitigation strategies and enhancing infrastructure resilience. © The Author(s) 2025.Anodic protectionInternal corrosionPassivationCement contentConcrete sewersCritical challengesCritical factorsEntropy-basedEnvironmental materialsFuzzy entropySewer pipelinesSoil typesWater pressuresUnderground corrosioncorrosionfuzzy mathematicspipelinesewer network