Estimating acoustic wave dispersion in pipelines filled with water is studied using theoretical analysis and laboratory experiments. Previous methods for experimentally estimating the dispersion of the propagating modes require multiple spatial measurements, making it difficult to measure. In this work the authors propose a method that utilizes only one spatial measurement using a singular value decomposition based approach. Experimental results of a cylindrical high-density polyethylene pipeline are used to demonstrate the usefulness of the approach. The approach could be useful in estimating the size and material properties of pipelines.