## 1 Introduction  
Water scarcity is a critical global issue, recognized by the World Economic Forum as one of the top three global risks [1, 2, 3]. Effective water resource management is essential to addressing this challenge. Pipelines play a crucial role in transporting essential resources, such as water, oil, and chemicals, especially in the mining sector [4; 5; 6]. Given the potential environmental and economic consequences of pipeline failures [3; 7], maintaining pipeline integrity is crucial [8; 9]. The mining industry presents particularly complex pipeline integrity challenges [5; 8; 10; 11; 12; 13]. Mining pipelines transport water and other resources over vast distances through rugged terrain and are subject to a variety of stressors--abrasive particles, chemical interactions, high pressure, and environmental fluctuations. These factors accelerate corrosion and material degradation, increasing the risk of structural failure. Such failures can have severe environmental and operational consequences. Pipeline failures that contaminate water are particularly harmful, especially in mining operations where pipelines carry mine water potentially containing heavy metals, acidic compounds, or other hazardous substances. For example, [PERSON] and [PERSON] [13] highlight how failures in Peru's mining infrastructure have caused significant water pollution, impacting ecosystems and communities dependent on clean water. Similarly, [PERSON] [12] emphasizes that inadequate water management in mining can contaminate water bodies, posing long-term risks to both environmental sustainability and human health. Thus, ensuring the durability and reliability of these pipelines is critical for both sustainability and operational efficiency [12; 13]. In Chile, a leading mining country with 13.6% to the national GDP [14] and 55.3% share of total exports in 2022 [15], pipelines are especially important due to the region's arid conditions, where water resources are already limited. Although the mining industry accounts for only 3% of Chile's water usage [16], most operations are situated in the driest regions, underscoring the need for sustainable water use and efficient pipeline management [17; 18]. Consequently, robust pipeline integrity management strategies are essential for the industry, requiring reliable inspection and maintenance methods tailored to the mining sector's challenging environments [6; 19; 20; 21]. Traditional inspection techniques, such as visual inspections and radiography, are often inadequate for the demands of mining pipelines. Visual inspection, the most commonly used non-destructive testing (NDT) method due to its simplicity and cost-effectiveness, is clearly limited by its inability to detect internal or early-stage defects without supplementary methods [22]. Radiography, although more comprehensive, requires significant expertise, is costly, and may not detect all types of anomalies, especially in inaccessible locations [20]. These limitations emphasize the need for advanced, non-disruptive inspection technologies that can address the remote, large-scale, and rugged pipeline conditions of the mining sector [6; 8; 23]. To overcome these limitations, recent advancements in NDT offer more promising approaches for mining pipeline inspection, including Guided Wave (GW), Metal Magnetic Memory (MMM), and In-Line Inspection (ILI) technologies. Each of these methods has unique capabilities and limitations. Guided Wave (GW) technology uses ultrasonic waves that propagate along the pipeline to detect surface-level anomalies over moderate distances without the need for full pipeline access. This technology is especially useful for identifying corrosion and structural flaws in above-ground pipelines. However, GW is limited by signal attenuation over long distances, reducing its effectiveness in large pipeline networks typical in mining [24; 25; 26].