Smart Water Technology for Efficient Water use
Whether it is used for drinking, domestic use, food production, or recreation, safe and readily available water is essential for public health. Improved water supply and sanitation, as well as better management of water resources, can help countries thrive economically and eliminate inequality. Water systems are used all around the world to direct the flow of water from natural and man-made reservoirs to customers. Water flows to treatment centres after this initial use, where it repeats the process once more.
Water distribution technologies have existed in various forms for generations. Aqueducts were built by the ancient Romans to transfer water from mountain lakes to crowded cities. Water distribution and treatment technologies improve as new technology emerges.
What Is Smart Water Technology?
The most recent advancements in water technology rely on the transmission of real-time data. Smart water systems have the potential to solve some of the most critical problems in water system management. Smart water technology is a trend in the water industry that uses future technologies such as hardware, software, and analytics to assist water supply and wastewater facilities in solving problems through automation, data collection, and analysis methods.
Smart water technologies have the ability to solve problems such as leak detection, water efficiency, energy efficiency, water quality improvements, and more. Smart water technology provides a framework for more efficient technology use as well as better-informed decision-making.
Who benefits from Smart Water Technology?
In an ideal world, everyone would benefit from smart water technology. Utilities would ideally benefit from ideal solutions that allow them to focus operating expenses on more vital areas. Manufacturers gain confidence in their ability to innovate and develop new technologies for the industry by using data to guide what works and what doesn’t. Engineers will be able to more effectively assist their clients, while residents of a smart water network will gain improved insight into their water use.
Furthermore, when discussing smart water technology, discussions regarding addressing a community’s most vulnerable populations become important. Water equity, affordability, and access are integrally tied to smart water technology, which can be used to solve the difficulties and challenges that vulnerable communities experience. The technology can provide insights into water consumption patterns, community pipe leaks, and operational inefficiencies, which could help these areas access clean and economical water.
Current Challenges to Water Management
Water distribution from a reservoir to clients is becoming more complicated.
A quarter of the amount of usable water can be lost due to leaky infrastructure, filtration stages, and evaporation. Non-revenue water is one of the many problems that water providers tackle.
- Ageing Infrastructure
Underground pipelines safeguard the water supply as it passes. However, many localities use equipment that is more than 50 years old. Cracks and leaks are common in this ageing infrastructure. Water loss and water quality crises are both caused by poor piping conditions. Outdated facilities will break down and impair service if left unattended.
- Climate Change
Water supply systems are under considerable stress as the climate changes. Some areas are experiencing numerous seasons of minimal precipitation. To meet water demands, they must rely on conservation strategies and efficient management.
Flood-producing storms have increased in some other areas. In an emergency, certain older water treatment systems release untreated water to prevent system flooding. As the climate changes, such catastrophes will become more frequent, with longer periods of flooding.
- Growing Demands
Several regions have exceeded their water infrastructure’s capacity. This reduces overall water pressure while also putting the distribution system highly vulnerable to ground spillage. Furthermore, an increasing population limits the ability of the water supply to fulfil demand. Every drop lost due to inefficiency is a matter of concern.
Smart Water technology – Benefits
Efficient Water Management
Every year, non-revenue water costs the water business billions of dollars.
Without rigorous monitoring, organizations may not be aware of leaks until it is too late to fix them. Water flow data in real-time alerts the organization to variations in volume as they occur. They can address the minor issues before a comprehensive collapse occurs.
Real-Time Water Usage and Analytics
Most water utility companies measure water flow supplied at the first point of entry to the property, so there will be no visibility to the end-user of how much water is being used/wasted. The end-user can see what is happening at any time and at any location by putting smart water meters throughout their property. Smart water meters provide peace of mind with remote control water shut-off capability from anywhere around the world.
Property Protection
Smart water technologies are like your alarm system with 24/7 365 proactive monitoring. The smart meters protect your assets against plumbing leaks, with remote shut-off capability.
“ You are 3x more likely to be affected by plumbing leaks than burglary ”
ESG- Carbon footprint
Across every industry, water has become a more valuable and scarce resource. Several firms are now making a water-related environmental pledge. Organizations should develop strategies for managing this vital resource as water scarcity becomes the norm in many parts of the world.
As a beginning point, several corporations are now undertaking “water footprints” to determine where their businesses are vulnerable in the business strategy.
Future thinking companies are putting in place smart water technologies to help reduce their carbon footprint by reducing water wastage.
“Water is also an energy vampire by heating hot water, and lack of proper water management”
Implementing Smart Water technology
Water management technology is constantly evolving and this will have an impact on the financial basis and conserving the scarce resource- water. The current procedure begins by commercial companies analyzing their water bills and looking for anomalies. The fun fact is this does not work, it is slow and inefficient and impossible to detect the cause of any issues.
Companies need to be careful when choosing a smart water technology. Lots of companies believe having a logger/AMR on their utility meter will solve all their water issues. This is generally not the case as this only puts the power in the water utility companies’ hands to make meter reading easier for the utility companies.
At SMART FLOW we put the power back in the end-users hands by providing water cost reductions, property protection, peace of mind and assisting with ESG goals. We have developed four simple flows for efficient water management.
