December 14, 2022
climate-change innovation-in-water-challenge leak-detection vulnerable-consumers water-qualitySince announcing our first winners of the Innovation in Water Challenge in April 2021, 11 teams have been hard at work trialing their solutions, and considering how they could be implemented and scaled across the sector.
Each winner, selected for their innovative approaches to some of the key challenges facing the water sector, has shared in £2.1 million to explore solutions which could transform the efficiency of the water network, reduce waste, repair damaged ecosystems, and improve quality for customers.
Read on for an update on how four of these winning initiatives have advanced over the past year. In this update:
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As the water sector strives to reduce and ultimately eliminate leaks, new technology is providing innovative ways to monitor networks and detect problems. This initiative lead by Severn Trent Water looks at novel ways to improve the resilience of our infrastructure, and sustainably and efficiently address risks to customers and the environment.
The project investigates whether unused optical fibre strands (known as “dark fibre”) within existing cable networks can be used can be used to detect leaks in nearby water pipes. So far, the initial results look promising – the team have now established that they can detect leaks directly from the vibrations generated using optical fibres up to 5m away, a result even better than expected. The team have both identified the ‘signature’ of leaks (that is, what a leak ‘looks like’), and have optimised existing data processing techniques for leak detection.
The next steps for the team will be to explore how existing data about the stability of earth around pipes could allow them to indirectly detect leaks, and implement this at scale. Over the coming months, a prolonged trial will test the effectiveness of using dark fibre for leak detection in order to develop a service business model for leak detection across the water network.
In the future, this technology could be used to ensure leaks are detected and repaired before they result in a loss of water supply for customers. The increased accuracy in leak detection will also reduce wasted water, and so help water companies and the supply chain move towards net-zero emissions as a sector.
Monitoring and managing taste and odour risk in drinking water reservoirs requires accurate, timely data on the community of algae such as cyanobacteria (also known as blue-green algae). One approach which holds promise is environmental DNA (eDNA) monitoring, which looks for trace evidence left by organisms in an environment, such as faeces or carcasses. This project, led by Welsh Water, builds on eDNA monitoring methods, using it to detect algae in water reservoirs to improve the taste and smell of drinking water.
The standardised approach to water sampling developed over the course of the project provides an opportunity to quickly identify bacteria using eDNA, reducing the time spent on sample processing. Using AI, researchers have now generated automatic data visualisations, which can be easily searched by users. This methodology is being amended and updated to ensure that it can be used broadly by the water industry, and the scripts used to process the data collected will be shared openly, allowing others working on similar projects to import and manipulate the data for other means.
The new approach to optimising the current laboratory operational procedure has streamlined the process, making sampling results easier to automate and also more cost-effective. New methods of sampling also yield higher eDNA concentrations in water samples, yielding higher quality results. The new bioinformatic pipelines are now more robust and have been designed to reduce the amount of human input and analytical skill required to generate data. This will make analysis much more time-efficient, replacing time-consuming microscopy and ultimately reducing costs for the customer.
Seagrass meadows enhance the stability of the coastal zone, locking carbon into the seabed, improving water quality, and creating a habitat for small animals, which enhances the resilience of coastal ecosystems. This project, led by Affinity Water, draws on nature-based solutions by creating local opportunities to increase biodiversity and sequester (or capture) carbon and nitrogen, seeking to create a roadmap to unlock the ‘blue carbon’ potential (carbon captured by marine ecosystems) of seagrass restoration for the water sector and beyond.
In Stour and Orwell, where the project is based, replenishing the 380 hectares of seagrass that have disappeared since the 1970s would supply over £20 million pounds worth of nitrogen removal and burial services, store over 41,000 tonnes of carbon and substantially increase coastal resilience during extreme weather events. Planting seagrass meadows would restore and improve the ecological status of our water environments, protecting current and future customers from the impacts of extreme weather and pollution.
The project initially set out to create a seagrass nursery on the East Coast of England, but the approach has since changed. Seagrass meadows in the region have a low density and Natural England is not in favour of seeds being removed for trials. Seagrass in the region has also been identified to be a genetic outlier and both of these factors mean that no active restoration trials will be able to go on in the area as originally intended.
The team are continuing to seek out appropriate sites for trials, in accordance with Natural England’s recommendations. The project now aims to provide as much holistic data as possible to inform future restoration projects as possible. The team is focusing efforts on the underlying science to inform future projects and has been working internationally – collaborating with a team in the Netherlands to establish and lead the Global Seagrass Nursery Network.
This project, led by Severn Trent Water, is applying behavioural science and ethnographic principles to understand who the water sector’s customers really are, and how they can best meet their needs. Working with the Consumer Council for Water (CCW), South East Water and Thames Water, Seven Trent Water aim to explore different communication methods used to connect with customers, and understand their effectiveness.
Through a series of trials and ongoing research, focused on a demographically diverse pilot area in Leicester, the team have been testing how campaigns and support can best be directed to those most in need. Early findings from these experiments are showing very positive results, with targeted marketing informed by behavioural science driving a 13% increase in registrations for the Priority Services Register, and a 48% increase in customers signing up to affordability schemes. Certain behavioural science techniques saw as much as a 900% increase in sign-ups compared to previous campaigns.
The project has also identified a huge appetite for local schools, community centres and religious groups to work closely with the water sector to understand, educate and help the vulnerable customers in their communities. The insights obtained will be used to tailor customer journeys and communication channels to be more appropriate and effective, facilitating a step-change improvement for the water sector in the engagement of their customers.
You can read more about all of our winners on the winners page.
