Over March 29 – April 2, the No-Dig Show 2026 is being held on the US West Coast this year with Palm Springs, CA, set to host the trenchless industry this time year. The community will meet and discuss projects, technology, trends and opportunities – and catch up socially, as well as advance business and training.
The event will be held at the Palm Springs Convention Center and has packed possibilities in the program and events – and will also have a busy exhibitor area.
The No-Dig Show 2026 is a key event arranged by the North American Society for Trenchless Technology (NASTT). On the social (perhaps some may also say business) side there is to be a golf tournament, then other networking events, breakfast meetings, and also the Awards.
Talking sport, a keynote speaker if Bill Hanway of Aecom, currently leading the design team for the LA 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games Plan. He focuses on large scale regeneration projects and the presentation to No-Dig will discuss design for major sports events – and the physical and social legacy.
On training, a number of courses are available this year again as Good Practices Courses – including Cured-in- Place Pipelines (CIPP), Horizontal Direct Drilling (HDD), new installation methods, pipe bursting, and more. Other courses will be more introductory – such as to new installations and rehabilitation, respectively.
On the technical briefings, the program will run in parallel tracks with multiple areas of focus, such as:
- Microtunnelling;
- Trenchless 101;
- HDD;
- Emerging Technology;
- Auger Boring;
- CIPP;
- Water Main Rehabilitation;
- Stormwater Rehabilitation;
- Wastewater Pipeline Rehabilitation;
- Project Planning & Delivery;
- Pipejacking;
- Pipe Bursting;
- Inspection;
- Condition Assessment;
- Asset Management;
- General Rehabilitation;
- Direct Pipe;
- Large Diameter Tunnelling;
- Oil/Gas Transmission;
- Sliplining;
- Trenchless Research; and,
- Geotechnical Issues
Such variety in areas of focus shows the scope and needs in the market as existing utility infrastructure ages and requires maintenance or renewal, or indeed replacement, and also how growth requires new tunnelling works. The market in North America is enormous and the requirements to keep what is there and add to that network infrastructure is only increasing by the year. This creates much opportunity for the trenchless tunnelling industry and there will be much to discuss at the No-Dig Show 2026, in Palm Springs.
PROJECT PIPELINE DATA
Utility budgets have a sizeable proportion of spend on underground-related infrastructure needs in North America, which is different from most other areas of the world in that respect.
According to the latest market analysis by GlobalData, the utility sector has total pipeline spend beating all other sectors for infrastructure projects that require significant tunnel works in their overall budget.
The spend in the water and sewerage sector dominates tunnel spend in North America, according to GlobalData’s latest report – ‘Project Insight – Global Tunnel Construction projects: Q3-2025’. The analysis looks at all stages of projects, from early planning to construction. Given its market size, the US budgets far outweighs that of Canada; Mexico is not included by GlobalData in the North America categorisation. Combined, water and sewerage across North America accounts for US$62.7 billion out of a total value of US$126.6 billion, or almost half.
The closest sectors following are transport – rail and road tunnels, respectively – with pipeline budgets of have budgets of US$42.4 billion and US$20.9 billion.
A key step-up in spend in the water and sewerage sector in recent years has come from the increase in spend of drainage and flood mitigation tunnel projects in many urban areas.
Water and Sewerage took the lead in the course of 2025. Relatively, other parts of the world spend far less on water and sewerage compared to North America – including in other developed economies.
For example, in Western Europe the largest share of the sectors is transport – especially metro/rail projects that include notable portions of underground infrastructure. Other regions are farther behind, relatively and in absolute spend. By far the leader in utility spend on water, drainage and sewerage tunnels, then, is North America, and within that region it is led by US.
Proportionally, water and sewerage has a bigger share of tunnel project spend in the US compared to Canada, where its ranks third behand transport tunnels of both types – road (leading) and metro/rail.
Although far less in relative budgets, there is also spend in North America on gas networks, part of which require underground works.
