WIPAC Monthly - January 2021

WIPAC MONTHLY
The Monthly Update from Water Industry Process Automation & Control
www.wipac.org.uk Issue 1/2021- January 2021

In this Issue
WIPAC Monthly is a publication of the Water Industry Process Automation & Control Group. It is produced by the group
manager and WIPAC Monthly Editor, Oliver Grievson. This is a free publication for the benefit of the Water Industry and please
feel free to distribute to any who you may feel benefit. However due to the ongoing costs of WIPAC Monthly a donation website
has been set up to allow readers to contribute to the running of WIPAC & WIPAC Monthly, For those wishing to donate then
please visit https://www.patreon.com/Wipac all donations will be used solely for the benefit and development of WIPAC.
All enquires about WIPAC Monthly, including those who want to publish news or articles within these pages, should be directed
to the publications editor, Oliver Grievson at olivergrievson@hotmail.com
From the editor............................................................................................................. 3
Industry news..............................................................................................................
Highlights of the news of the month from the global water industry centred around the successes of a few
of the companies in the global market.
4 - 13
The year that the pandemic changed the water industry...............................................
In this feature article I look at the changes and the positives that the current disaster that we are living through
have brought to the water industry including the acceptance of remote working and the path of wastewater-
based epidemiology into the limelight
14-16
How acoustic water leak detection is used to tackle water loss.....................................
In this case study by A2A we look at the use of acoustic data loggers, which have been one of the more popular
techniques in the last few years and their use in addressing the problems of leakage.
17
Creating a risk-based approach to dam monitoring maintenance..................................
In this case study from Australia we look at the approaches taken in risk management surrounding dams and the
use of technology such as drones and data analytics to inform maintenance programmes.
18-20
Workshops, conferences & seminars............................................................................
The highlights of the conferences and workshops in the coming months. 21-22

From the Editor

The debate about pollutions has continued this month and WIPAC together with the SWAN Forum will debate the issue
next month in an event that is kindly being sponsored by Siemens. We've seen a promise this month by the wider
water industry including the Government, Regulators and the Water Companies to "eliminate harm from overflows." The
promise is a long-term goal and in some ways it isn't a new promise as we had a promise to "eliminate serious pollution
events by 2020." So what is new about this promise and what do we, as an industry, need to do to achieve this laudable
goal.
I often ask candidates in their professional review interviews the question.
"If you had a blank piece of paper to address x problem with no worries about budget what three things would you do
now to solve the problem?"
The majority of the time candidates can't stretch themselves out of the norm to answer the question especially when it
concerns the "big & hairy" problems that the water industry faces - Net Zero, Pollution and the likes. The truth is there is
no right or wrong answer and if a candidate can come up with a good two or three concepts that we should move towards
then they are doing well. In reality there is no silver bullet, there is no one solution.
If I circle back to pollutions what would be my solutions, what would be my three things that I would look to do? Well some of it is already being done. The
absolute first thing to do is to monitor where the problem is as if we can't quantify the problem then we can't do anything about it. It goes back to the old
analogy that is often overused in terms of "monitoring to manage," which is as true nowadays as it has ever been. The second analogy to pull out is of course
"garbage in and garbage out," if we don't measure properly then why measure at all. It is why I wrote the IWA white paper on Instrumentation in Digital
Transformation and why some of you came to the 7th WIPAC Webinar this month on the subject. In that webinar we talked about the instrumentation life-
cycle which is something, at least in principle that we should all work towards. Once we have the data then we must obey the third analogy which was brought
to life by one of the people who I trust implicitly in this strange industry of ours. The author of the analogy is Pernille Inglidsen and she quite simply said in her
book on Smart Water Systems which she authored with Gustaf Olsson -
"Go M.A.D."
With the MAD standing for Measure, Analyse & Decide. In this industry of ours we quite often collect the data and do nothing with it and again this brings
about the value of instrumentation. So that's the preamble which is designed to delay things so that I can think about what would I actually do?
1. Think of the wastewater collection network and treatment works as one system - we have often thought about them as two separate
entities. In reality they are two systems that are interdependent upon each other. Treat them as the same. Once we do this we can look
at what we could put in place to monitor and control this system. Is it a Digital Twin approach? Maybe - is it something else maybe but
one of the cheaper solutions we can put in place is control of the system and he has multiple other benefits including telling us where
blockages are and where we risk creating a pollution incident. It also gives us the data to see where the problems lie, what we can do
about it and where we have to invest. The control also helps with the net zero goal as efficiency where pollution risk is low can be used
for energy optimisation.
2. Education - Sewer misuse is still a massive problem within the water industry and, arguably, it would be fair to say that it causes the
majority of pollution incidents within the system. Solution number 1 can help with detecting blockages but in reality education of the
customer can help eliminate the problem at source.
3. Build - Its not a popular answer as it going to increase the carbon consumption of the water industry but if you are a realist you have to
accept that there is going to be occasions where you are going to have to increase sewer capacity, you are going to have to build detention
tanks as in reality controlling the situation will only take you so far.
These are partial solutions and in reality there is a lot more that needs to be done but these would be my first three things that I would personally do. There
is more to be done including a lot more on education that I have covered here. It's one of the things I said when taking over the reigns as Chairman of the
Sensors for Water Interest Group. Do join us at the workshop on 18th February to discuss the issues further.
Have a good month and of course stay safe,
Oliver

Oliver Grievson takes over the helm at the Sensors for Water
Interest Group
Executive Director of the Water Industry Process Automation & Control Group and Technical Lead at Z-Tech Control
Systems has taken over from Andrew Chappel, of the Environment Agency, as the new Chairman of the Sensors
for Water Interest Group (SWIG). At the SWIG annual general meeting Oliver thanked Andrew Chappel for all of
his hard work in leading the national group for the past two years especially considering the pressure that the
Coronavirus pandemic has had on all not for profit organisations forcing them to move from physical to virtual
events over the past year as people have been forced to isolate in lockdown conditions.
After a brief introduction Oliver went onto explain his priorities over the next couple of years in order to ensure
the knowledge of sensors grows within the water industry considering the developments of the companies in the
Digital Transformation arena. The priorities include:
• Managing to continue to engage with the water industry in the field of sensors and digital transformation, despite the Coronavirus pandemic,
by adapting the delivery of workshops by looking at when the industry can go back to physical meetings whilst also developing the virtual
offering.
• Expansion of the SWIG Membership by being more inclusive of the different types of offerings, especially Tier 1 contractors, who don't currently
engage with the organisation. This may need an adaption of the services that SWIG offers to its members to ensure that the value of the
organisation is clear.
• Development of the educational offering that SWIG offers to its members by working with the supply chain members to offer content to ensure
that technicians and engineers have the information that they need to develop their careers in instrumentation.
• Encourage contact with other industries in order to learn the different ways of doing things.
• Continue to offer a great service to our membership.
• Re branding of SWIG to encourage the growth of the organisation.
• Working with our sister organisation, the Water Control Room Forum (W-CRF) to see how we can both support the water industry.
Oliver Grievson concluded at the AGM by saying "A vast number of water industry not-for-profit and charity organisations have suffered during the current pandemic
with most seeing their membership shrink. Through listening to our membership and continuing to offer valuable content and support to our membership in their
instrumentation and Digital Transformation journey.
The Sensors for Water Interest Group promotes the dissemination of information on sensor developments and fosters collaboration through targeted workshops.
SWIG offers a cost effective way of maintaining an up to date knowledge of, and dissemination of, information on individual new technologies and/or sensor
applications. SWIG workshops also consider the effect of existing and forecast regulations and legislation on the design and use of environmental and process
measurements. SWIG was originally set up in 1993 along with other special Interest Groups, with funding from the DTI Advanced Sensor Technology Transfer
Programme.
SWIG aims to:
• Provide a forum for manufacturers, end users and researchers in the sensor community to test new ideas, exchange views and network.
• Provide workshops that concentrate on practical applications and current challenges for measurement and control in the water, wastewater
and natural waters.
• Encourage collaboration between all parties interested in research, development and use of sensors for the control and measurement of water
quality and quantity.
Page 4
Industry News

Yorkshire Water trials smart inspection technology to speed up
sewer network repairs
Yorkshire Water is trialling smarter sewer inspection technology to increase
collaboration across its teams and ensure sewer problems are fixed quickly and
efficiently.
The company has implemented WinCan Web, a cloud-based platform, that allows
its technicians to share video, images and information with colleagues and senior
engineers based elsewhere.
CCTV footage and images taken underground can be uploaded and accessed
remotely by teams on site, at home or in the office, allowing input from more
people to ensure an issue is solved while teams are visiting a customer's home.
Nathan Clayton, a technical specialist at Yorkshire Water, said:
“Customers contacting us about sewer blockages want their problem fixed quickly
and rely on us to get to the root of the problem.
“This technology allows our teams to share images and information with in-house
specialists to use their expertise to identify the problem and find a solution,
whether that be a blockage, a collapsed sewer or an issue in a difficult to access
section of our network.
“By sharing information quickly across our specialist teams we’re able to work together to get the best result for our customers first time around, improving
efficiency and reducing the impact on customers.”
The technology will also be used by Yorkshire Water’s network protection teams to show customers how blockages have been caused and help them understand
ways to avoid similar incidents in the future.
Paul Woodhouse, WinCan Europe managing director, said:
“We are delighted to assist our partner Yorkshire Water in its drive for first time resolution. Clarity of data delivered business-wide instantly from site will allow
decisions to be made faster than ever before.
“The WinCan WEB portal allows all this from a simple interface that fits from senior water company engineer to domestic householder. As the saying goes ‘a
picture (or Data & Video) speak a thousand words’.”
Phillip Dunne announced as keynote speaker at the joint SWAN/
WIPAC Webinar on "Overcoming Pollution"
Next month the SWAN Forum and Water Industry Process Automation & Control Group will be
coming together in co-organising the "Overcoming Pollution" online workshop on the afternoon of
18th February. This month both groups announced that the keynote speaker for the day will be the
Right Honourable Phillip Dunne MP who has championed the Private Members Bill on the pollution
of inland water-bodies through the Houses of Parliament. It was also announced that Siemens will
be sponsoring this very popular virtual workshop.
He will be joined in the first session by Nick Mills, the Head of Pollution at Southern Water, and as
yet to be confirmed representative from the Environment Agency. The general discussion in the
first session will be led by Oliver Grievson and Pernille Ingildsen and will concentrate on confirming
the nature of the pollution problem in the UK and how we can work at a strategic level to both
monitor the problem we have and to "overcome pollution."
The second session of the afternoon will feature speakers from around the world and look at what
the water industry in the UK is currently doing to monitor things including the Event Duration Monitoring Programme on CSOs and the Flow to Full Treatment
Programme that is currently being delivered and then look at the solution to the problem in Singapore as a case study as how things are handled in other parts
of the world. We will then hear a water company perspective from Emma Harris of Welsh Water.
In the final session of the day attendees will split out into working groups to hear about a number of solutions that are currently being worked upon at either a
proof of concept or an operational level to see what can actually be done to overcome the pollution problem that exists in both England & Wales and what we
can do about it. Examples of this is the work that Brian Moloney of StormHarveter has done with Wessex Water and Siemens have done with Yorkshire Water
as highlighted in November's Virtual Flow Forum.
There are still places free on the event of 18th February and those interested should register via the event page on LinkedIn (don't forget to say your attending
on LinkedIn and register via Zoom) which is reachable by clicking here.
Right Honourable Phillip Dunne MP
Page 5

Ofwat launches £2m water sector innovation competition
Ofwat has launched its £2 million Innovation in Water Challenge (IWC) this month, the first in a series of competitions funded through Ofwat’s £200 million
Innovation Fund that aims to create new collaborations in the water sector. Run in partnership with Nesta Challenges, Arup and Isle Utilities, the water sector
regulator has launched the IWC to stimulate innovative responses to challenges in the water industry, such as climate change and the risk of pollution in UK
waterways. Entries for the inaugural £2 million IWC are now open for water companies and their partners - both within and outside the sector - to submit their
ideas and be in with a chance of winning up to £250,000. The IWC is looking for collaborative initiatives that address the big challenges of today and the future;
from achieving net zero, to protecting natural ecosystems from leakages or pollution, and delivering better value for money for water customers in England and
Wales.
The IWC is the first of two competitions being run this year within Ofwat’s £200 million Innovation Fund, as part of the regulator’s goal to create an innovative and
collaborative water sector that is well-placed to meet the evolving needs of customers, society and the environment in the years to come. It aims to encourage
innovative ideas that water companies would otherwise be unable to invest in or explore. Entries must be submitted by water companies from England and
Wales together with their partner organisations. The partner organisations can be either within or outside the water sector, for example energy, manufacturing,
health or financial services. Each winning partnership will receive between £50,000 and £250,000 to support their initiatives.
The Water Companies have worked together and identified 8 top challenges among others that they hope to see entrants into the competition work on including:
Primary Theme Broad Challenge
Achieving net zero carbon How can we decarbonise energy and transport emissions through avoidance, efficiency and alternatives to
fossil fuels?
Taking a whole life approach to responsible
consumption and production
How might we sustainably eliminate leakage across water company networks and customers’ pipes?
Protecting and enhancing natural systems Net positive - natural capital, net zero carbon and minimal waste
Delivering resilient infrastructure systems How do we monitor our assets in order to respond correctly to rapidly changing environments and unpredicted
events
Providing clean water for all How might we develop and implement improved ways of monitoring water from catchment to tap?
Delivering resilient infrastructure systems How do we measure the current condition of our assets, accurately predict their deterioration and know when
and how to intervene
Providing clean water for all How might we redesign drinking water supply to be low impact and sustainable, maintaining excellent service
while reducing the materials, energy and chemicals used in building, owning and operating water systems?
Taking a whole life approach to responsible
consumption and production
How might we better engage with our customers to change how they think and feel about water and to embed
behaviours that show that customers value water as a scarce resource and treat it as such?
John Russell, Senior Director at Ofwat commented:
“We strongly believe in the power of partnerships and collaboration in bringing about more innovation that will help deliver better outcomes for customers,
society and the environment.
“We are now at a pivotal point in the sector’s future and we’re excited to open up the door to innovation and new ideas from both within and outside the sector.
This is just the first of a series of competitions we’ll be running as part of our Innovation Fund to deliver long term transformational change for the water sector.”
Chris Gorst, Director of Challenges at Nesta Challenges added:
“The water sector is currently facing the most defining challenges of our era - from climate change to building long-term resilience against the effects of extreme
weather and meeting the evolving needs of society. Innovation and collaboration are going to be key in meeting these challenges and we look forward to seeing
bold ideas from entrants over the coming weeks.
“We’re open to all kinds of entries – from technology, methodologies and approaches, business practices, commercial models and other budding ideas – and we
know the best ideas can often come from the most unlikely places, so we hope to see a range of partnerships from both within and outside the sector.”
The water industry has identified a number of key challenges that it hopes to see within the first challenge
Deadline for entries is 12 noon (GMT) on 26 February 2021 – click here for more information and to apply for the IWC
Page 6

United Utilities names the eight new tech firms in its
Innovation Lab 3
United Utilities have this month announced the eight new tech firms that are going to take part in their innovation lab. The firms come from around the world
from within the UU region to the Gold Coast of Australia. The eight firms will take part in the 12-week programme to incubate and co-create ideas for the water
sector. Previous partcipants are already making large impacts across the water industry.
Low carbon 3D-concrete printing, sludge-cleaning microbes and satellites that hunt potential pipeline fractures are just three of the pioneering new technologies
to make it onto United Utilities’ third Innovation Lab. The UK water company has announced the eight winners of its latest much-admired global tech hunt for
bright new ideas.
The innovative technologies will now be developed hand-in-hand with United Utilities, which gives them unrivalled access to the company’s expertise, processes,
data and resources to help co-develop and bring them to market for the water sector.
This year’s winning suppliers come from as near as Birkenhead, in Liverpool, to the Sunshine Coast of Australia via Europe and the US.
A total of 103 suppliers submitted a bumper crop of 118 ideas to meet the themes of Systems Thinking, Circular Economy, Future of Water and Wild Card. It
was an increase in applications of 58% on previous years. Twenty were invited to virtually pitch their ideas in November. United Utilities Head of Innovation
Kieran Brocklebank said although the coronavirus pandemic had prevented assessments and pitches taking place in person, it clearly had not been a barrier to
ingenuity:
“It’s almost become normal for us to say how impressed we are at the standard and sheer brilliance of some of the ideas that come our way, but it really is true.
Every one of them deserved a help getting their foot in the door of the water industry, but we can only take eight. We’re really looking forward to nurturing them
and co-creating with them for the benefit of everyone in the water sector,” he said.
The eight winning suppliers in the four categories are:
Circular economy category
• Changemaker 3D, a company from Malvern, UK, using mobile robotics machinery to 3D-print bespoke low carbon concrete items on site
more quickly and with less waste than traditional cast or pre-cast.
• Genesis Biosciences, a company from Cardiff, Wales, which has combined a fine natural mineral with specially selected microbes to aid
anaerobic digestion, reduce sludge and generate more renewable energy.
Future of Water category
• Leakster Pty, a company from Queensland, Australia, which has developed a prototype Internet of Things (IoT) AI leak sensor which non-
invasively monitors pipe condition to spot leaks, locate them and gauge their size.
• SME Water, a company from Birkenhead, UK, who use machine-learning and applied data science to analyse flows in district metered areas
and provide better understanding of water demand.
Systems Thinking category
• HWM, an established company from Cwmbran, Wales, with a novel idea for easy-install, low maintenance monitors and software to spot
sewer blockages.
• Noam, a firm from San Francisco, USA, using automated systems thinking to bring insight into unstructured data and spot trends, save costs
and improve forecasting.
Wildcard category
• Planetek Italia, a company from Bari, Italy, combining satellite monitoring, ground-based activity monitoring and AI to detect the millimetre-
scale ground movements which could lead to pipe fractures.
• Transcend Software Inc.,a company from New Jersey, USA, whose automated cloud-based design software can generate complete
preliminary engineering packages at a fraction of the cost and time.
More details on each of the companies are available on the United Utilities website by clicking here.
These eight companies will now spend 12 weeks with United Utilities before presenting their final products at a Demo day in April. United Utilities’ technology
incubator programme is run in conjunction with L Marks and has successfully launched a number of new suppliers into the water market since it began in 2017.
Cumbrian firm Typhon took part in Innovation Lab 1 and developed its unique water treatment solution using advanced LED bulbs. Its first units are being
installed this month, with the technology attracting interest from water companies and industrial users around the world. Another UK company FIDO Tech took
part in Innovation Lab 2 and its leakage detection solutions are now up and running at United Utilities and currently being piloted around the world.
Page 7

Cyber attack - SEPA hit by “complex and sophisticated criminality”
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) has confirmed that it has been responding to a significant cyber attack affecting its contact centre and
internal systems. Whilst core regulatory, monitoring, flood forecasting and warning services have continued, communications into and across the organisation
have been significantly impacted.
David Pirie, Executive Director at SEPA commented:
“At one minute past midnight on Christmas Eve, SEPA systems were subject to a significant and ongoing cyber-attack. The attack is impacting our contact centre,
internal systems, processes and internal communications.
“We immediately enacted our robust business continuity arrangements, with our core regulatory, monitoring, flood forecasting and warning services adapting
and continuing to operate.”
SEPA’s Emergency Management Team has been working with Scottish Government, Police Scotland and the National Cyber Security Centre to respond to what
it described as “complex and sophisticated criminality.”
On Christmas Eve, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency confirmed that it was responding to a significant cyber-attack affecting its contact centre, internal
systems, processes and internal communications. They are continuing to respond to the ongoing ransomware attack likely to be by international serious and
organised cyber-crime groups. The matter is subject to a live criminal investigation and the duty of confidence is embedded in law.
Following the attack at 00:01 Hrs on Christmas Eve, business continuity arrangements were immediately enacted and their Emergency Management Team
worked with Scottish Government, Police Scotland and the National Cyber Security Centre to respond to what was complex and sophisticated criminality. SEPA’s
approach took the best professional advice from multi-agency partners, including Police Scotland and cyber security experts, with the multi-agency response
focused on eradication, remediation and recovery.
Despite systems being certified to UK Government security standards, cyber security specialists have identified the loss of circa 1.2 GB on data. Whilst, by
comparison, this is the equivalent to a small fraction of the contents of an average laptop hard drive, indications suggest that at least four thousand files may
have been accessed and stolen by criminals.
We have prioritised our legal obligations and duty of care on the sensitive handling of data very seriously. Work continues by cyber security specialists to seek
to identify what the stolen data was. Whilst we don’t know and may never know the full detail of the 1.2 GB of information stolen, what we know is that early
indications suggest that the theft of information related to a number of business areas.
Information included:
• Business information, such as publicly available regulated site permits, authorisations and enforcement notices. Some information related
to SEPA corporate plans, priorities and change programmes.
• Procurement information, such as publicly available procurement awards.
• Project information related to our commercial work with international partners.
• Staff information, including personal information, with limited sensitive data having been accessed.
Priority regulatory, monitoring, flood forecasting and warning services are adapting and continuing to operate. This includes:
• Delivery of nationally important flood forecasting and warning products, with flood alerts and warnings being issued within 24 hours of the Christmas
Eve attack.
• Contact centre and web self-help services which are being slowly restored, including SEPA’s Floodline, 24 Hour Pollution Hotline and environmental
event online reporting.
• Regulatory teams continuing to prioritise the most significant environmental events, high hazard sites and sites of community concern.
• Teams quickly working on interim ways to authorise regulated site activity, prioritising nationally important sectors such as food and drink, energy,
recycling and waste.
• In addition to ensuring the continued delivery of priority flood forecasting and warning services, our regulatory approach will continue to prioritise
supporting Scottish businesses and Scotland's recovery.
We will help businesses meet their environmental obligations and prioritise authorising economic activity. We will continue our risk based approach to regulation,
focusing the most effort on sites or sectors which require oversight or where there is a risk of criminality or organisations seeking to take advantage of the
ongoing cyber-attack.
Page 8

Four water companies take the lead in forming the South West
Leakage hub
Wessex Water, together with nearby companies Bristol Water, South West Water and Welsh Water, is part of the South West Leakage Hub. Made up of leading
leakage staff from the four companies, the Hub is a good example of the collaborative, open systems approach that we are promoting through the Wessex
Water Marketplace. It was setup by the four companies in order to develop a collaborative approach to help address the tough challenge around leakage that
the water industry faces within this asset management period especially considering that there is the possibility of further target reductions beyond the current
AMP means now is absolutely the right time to share information on a variety of topics. Taking a collaborative approach in this way will help ensure we have the
best chance of meeting the challenges and get there in a cost-effective way.
Through sharing expertise and experience in open, honest discussions, we believe we can drive down leakage much more effectively, benefiting all our customers
and the wider environment. We all use a wide range of technology and have different operating models so all can learn and benefit.
Key areas for discussion include:
• best practice and strategy on leakage detection
• pressure control strategy
• calm networks
• repair and maintenance performance
• non household data and elements/issues around data provision and accuracy within leakage calculations
• performance of subcontractors
• internal KPIs
• innovation
• and other shared challenges in this AMP and beyond.
A key part of the Hub is the trialling of innovation and sharing results honestly within the group.
We will also seek ideas from the wider supply chain, be that companies with innovative technology, current established providers, or companies new to the
leakage environment.
The South West Leakage Hub has already been meeting in its current format for three months and so far, has been sharing experiences and the tangible benefits
of acoustic logging and fixed networks to reduce leakage. We have discussed our different approaches on analysis, targeting, and technology providers. This
sharing enables lessons to be learned and applied in the most appropriate way in individual companies – as it’s very much a one size does not fit all approach.
Badger Meter Broadens Water Quality Offering With Acquisition
Of Analytical Technology, Inc
Badger Meter, Inc. announced this month the acquisition of Analytical Technology, Inc. (“ATi”), a privately held provider of water quality monitoring systems, for
$44 million, funded with available cash.
Founded in 1992, with headquarters in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, USA, ATi specializes in the design, manufacture and distribution of water quality instruments
based on electrochemical and optical sensors. In addition to water quality parameters, its technology is also used to detect toxic gasses used in water treatment
and other applications.
With 2020 revenue of approximately $22 million, ATi solutions are deployed predominately in the U.S. and Europe, with the latter served from a regional office
near Manchester, U.K. ATi offers modular, configurable and low-power multi-parameter water monitoring solutions that can be used in a variety of applications
where periodic or continual monitoring is required. Data can be stored locally or communicated to a central database via almost any protocol.
Kenneth C. Bockhorst, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Badger Meter, stated, “The combination of solutions - including industry-leading
electrochemical sensors from ATi with premier optical water quality monitoring instruments from s::can, which we acquired in November 2020 - provides Badger
Meter with a fully comprehensive, robust and scalable water quality monitoring offering that delivers real-time data on demand to municipal water utilities and
industrial users.”
“Through both organic investments and accretive acquisitions, our core strategy is to continue to augment our smart water offerings by seamlessly integrating
advanced technologies in instrumentation - including flow measurement, temperature, pressure and water-quality parameters - thereby enhancing the scope
of valuable data for use by utilities and industrial customers,” Bockhorst added. “Leveraging our industry-leading ORION® Cellular endpoints, along with current
and future communication and software technologies, we are creating robust digital solutions to operationalize real-time data into actionable insights that drive
better results, optimize operations, reduce costs and create outstanding customer experiences.”
Bockhorst concluded, “I look forward to working alongside the talented ATi team and welcoming them into the Badger Meter organization. By leveraging our
collective expertise, we believe we can continue to build out our smart water offerings and geographic reach, helping to preserve the world’s most precious
resource.”
This follows the acquisition of S::CANN by Badger Meter in November 2020 which has created an instrumentation company that has a large offering covering
multiple aspects of the water industry’s instrumentation needs.
Page 9

Water quality improvements to England's waterways 'faltering'
Efforts to improve the water quality of England's rivers, lakes and waterways are faltering - and unless policymakers recommit to the hard work of regular testing
and monitoring, they risk losing control of this battle completely, according to Elementar UK.
The company is calling for all of those responsible for looking after the purity of England’s surface water bodies to pay close attention to recent data trends,
which show that water quality across the country is failing to meet the necessary standards. The company is also warning that a further loss of momentum on
these efforts may be inevitable unless there is a change of approach.
The latest water classification results, released in September 2020 by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), painted a discouraging
picture of the nation’s progress in preventing pollution of its rivers, streams, lakes and other bodies of water. It showed that only 16% of England’s waters - and
only 14% of rivers - currently meet the criteria for “good ecological status”, the same percentage as in 2016.
Moreover, it was shown that none of England’s surface water bodies meet the current criteria for “good chemical status”, compared to 97% in 2016 - although
this was explained in large part by a switch to tougher new standards that more accurately report the presence of certain chemicals, such as toxic polychlorinated
biphenyls (PCBs).
The key contributors to this pollution have been raw sewage discharges by water companies directly into rivers, chemical discharges from industrial sites and
agricultural run-off. Defra has since admitted that it is currently “running to stand still” in its efforts to achieve 100% healthy waters by 2027, and that they are
still “a long way from the government’s ambitions”.
However, other reports have indicated that, by some metrics, the government is pulling back from steps to tackle this problem head-on, at a time when it should
be redoubling its effort. Data obtained by the Guardian in recent weeks has indicated that the number of water pollution incidents attended by the Environment
Agency in 2020 has fallen dramatically, with the Covid-19 pandemic cited as a key cause.
Between the start of April and the end of August 2020, the Environment Agency attended only 292 water pollution incidents, compared to 1,726 during the
same period in 2019 - an 83% drop. However, the number of incidents reported during these time periods remained largely the same (9,144 reports for 2020,
compared to 9,424 in 2019).
Meanwhile, analysis from the campaign group Unchecked UK has suggested that the root of these issues may go back much further than the pandemic, putting
the blame on environmental deregulation initiatives that were intended to deliver efficiency gains and cost savings.
According to the report, water quality improvement efforts have been hampered in the last decade by “ongoing failures to regulate firmly, the shifting of
regulatory responsibility to the private sector, the deferral of key targets, the decline in reporting frequency, and the rolling-back of monitoring programmes”.
The group estimates that it will now take over 200 years to achieve the government’s key water quality targets.
Although the Covid-19 pandemic continues to cause disruptions and economic pain, Elementar UK is reminding policymakers and other organisations responsible
for water quality standards that now is not the time to make any further cutbacks to water monitoring and testing.
Mike Seed, IRMS sales and product manager for Elementar UK, said: “In an unprecedented year, government organisations may be actively looking for areas
in which they can reduce spending to preserve the public purse. However, shying away from necessary action on England’s water quality is certainly a false
economy.
“Water pollution is a far-reaching problem with all sorts of serious consequences. It threatens the nation’s wildlife and plants; it undermines the health of
agricultural crops; it makes it more expensive and difficult to source the clean drinking water on which we all rely. Tackling this issue should therefore be
considered a top public priority.”
In order to bolster these efforts, Elementar UK is calling on England’s water laboratories to invest in the very latest technological solutions for monitoring and
testing. By making efficient use of sophisticated elemental analysis techniques, researchers can gain access to a wide range of insights into water quality and
environmental trends that can spur meaningful action.
Mike Seed explained: “Elemental analysis should be seen as a key cornerstone of England’s efforts to tackle its current water quality crisis. By screening samples
for their total organic carbon (TOC) concentrations, labs can identify the presence of potentially harmful impurities; nitrogen and phosphorus determination can
also be carried out to monitor the impact of agricultural fertilisers on water quality.
“What’s more, oxygen and hydrogen isotope analysis of environmental waters can enrich understanding of hydrogeological systems in many other ways,
providing insights into reservoir residence times, groundwater recharge rates, mixing models and river basin dynamics. This makes it possible for scientists to
understand the fate of these pollutants in our natural environment.
“Clearly, the issues facing water quality in England will not be easily solved - but only through a renewed commitment to proper testing, analysis and monitoring
will this country be able to achieve the improvements needed for our environment, our health and our communities.”
Page 10

Partnership between the Water Tower And GoHub By GoAigua
formed To fund innovation in the water sector
The Water Tower, the new water innovation hub in Buford, announces a partnership with GoHub, an international open innovation hub by GoAigua, with the
objective of fostering innovation, promoting entrepreneurship, and supporting the creation and growth of technology startups in the water sector.
With technology playing an increasingly critical role in the water industry, the acceleration of the development of novel technologies is necessary to help water
and wastewater utilities become more resilient.
The first-of-its-kind international partnership kicked off on January 1st, 2021. The joint technology entrepreneurship program will focus on water and wastewater
treatment, monitoring, metering, predictive analytics, water efficiency, digital water, and other areas of interest. GoHub is entering the new year with over €20M
to invest in startups and will be making these funds available participants in this acceleration and venture program.
“With this exciting collaboration, we will be able to offer international expertise on our campus and develop important new advances in utility-focused
technologies, allowing us to stay on the forefront of water innovation,” said Melissa Meeker, CEO of The Water Tower. “GoHub’s proven track record in utility
innovation and in finding and supporting start-ups, combined with TWT’s resources, will provide huge benefits for our partners and the greater water industry.”
GoHub has over twenty successful start-ups in its global portfolio with innovative offerings in robotics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and more. “We
are very excited to expand the portfolio and support the delivery of revolutionary technology offerings to the water sector alongside the remarkable TWT team,”
said Pablo Calabuig, CEO of GoAigua Inc.
The Water Council Announces BREW 2.0 Accelerator Program
Participants
The Water Council today is pleased to introduce the 12 water technology startup companies invited to participate in its BREW 2.0 late-stage water technology
accelerator program this February.
BREW 2.0, sponsored by the American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact, will provide program participants with access to resources
designed to help them scale and grow. “We are incredibly excited to work with The Water Council and BREW 2.0 to bring new solutions to the market to help
manage water quality and quantity. We believe these water technology startups can also help with our mission to close equity gaps in America as the worst
effects of climate change including water pollutants devastate at-risk communities throughout our country,” said John McIntyre, managing director of the
American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact Investment Fund.
From a field of 24 startups from the United States, Canada, Chile, South Korea, Belgium and India applying to the open competition last fall, The Water Council
team collaborated with global experts and partners in the water industry to select the finalists. “Through the interview process, we couldn’t be more pleased
with not only the high interest in the program but also the opportunity to meet so many well-qualified entrepreneurs ready to amplify their success,” said Karen
Frost, vice president of economic development at The Water Council.
Invited BREW 2.0 companies represent a wide array of water technologies and solutions, ranging from unmanned IoT systems to unique membrane technologies,
from water quality monitoring to nutrient capture, from filter media to water distribution management, and include the following:
• Aqua Membranes offers spiral-wound water membrane solutions
• BloomOptix offers unmanned aerial vehicles for high-resolution harmful algal bloom monitoring
• Capta Hydro offers integrated hardware and software IoT solutions for water distribution management
• Copperstone Technologies offers autonomous environmental monitoring robots for sampling, measurement and surveillance services
• CORNCOB, Inc. offers industrial wastewater filtration technology
• Divirod offers satellite water infrastructure and analytics technology
• ecoSPEARS offers an eco-friendly solution that destroys organic pollutants
• Glanris offers 100 percent green, ultra-low-cost water filtration media
• Sentry provides a bio-electrode sensor technology that provides real-time microbial performance monitoring for water or wastewater
treatment
• Swirltex offers buoyancy-based membrane filtration systems
• Varuna provides sensors and cloud-based software for real-time monitoring and insights for water distribution networks
• Water Warriors offers a water treatment solution for phosphorus runoff
Kicking off in early February, the virtual program includes targeted training and introductions within the water industry. Frost notes, “We have a rich water
ecosystem to tap into, so it’s valuable to have experts from our member companies and Wisconsin leading some program elements as well as help unlock
networks to accelerate their market adoption success.”
Water industry professionals and investors interested in learning more about these innovative water technology entrepreneurs’ solutions are invited to attend
a virtual Demo Day event on Tuesday, Feb. 23 beginning at 9:30 a.m. CST.
Page 11

Alfa Laval Acquires A Stake In AMI Global
Alfa Laval - a world leader in heat transfer, centrifugal separation and fluid handling - has acquired a 20 percent stake in AMI Global, specialized in end-to-
end industrial Internet of Things' (IoT) solutions for rotating equipment, to further strengthen Alfa Laval's position in connected services, such as condition
monitoring. The signing and closing date was December 31, 2020.
AMI Global is a portfolio company of Cimbria Capital, which is a private equity firm based in the United States and Scandinavia. The 20 percent stake will
enable Alfa Laval to further strengthen its competence in IoT technologies. It's part of the company's digital transformation and its ambitions to supply remote
monitoring of products and solutions. The ability to digitize a wide range of industrial equipment will provide meaningful data and create value for the company's
customers and end-users.
"With this investment we enhance our capabilities within remote monitoring and connected services. We know that 24/7 access to process information provides
users with powerful insights for decision making. At the same time, continuous monitoring enables predictive maintenance which minimize downtime giving
peace-of-mind for our customers," says Nish Patel, President of the Food & Water Division at Alfa Laval.
"We consider Alfa Laval to be an ideal business partner for the next chapter of AMI due to a strong commercial and cultural fit between the two companies," states
Henrik Skov Laursen, CEO of AMI Global. "Alfa Laval's investment in AMI shows the importance of digital transformation and proves Alfa Laval's commitment in
first-rate technology innovation."
Fleet Of Robots Successfully Tracks, Monitors Marine Microbes
After years of development and testing, researchers from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution have successfully demonstrated that a fleet of autonomous robots can track and study a moving microbial community in an
open-ocean eddy. The results of this research effort were recently published in Science Robotics.
Edward DeLong and David Karl, oceanography professors in UH Mānoa’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) and co-authors of the study,
have been researching open-ocean microbes for decades using research vessels, buoys, satellite observations, automatic samplers and on-shore laboratories.
Autonomous robotic fleets enable researchers to observe complex systems in ways that are otherwise impossible with purely ship-based or remote sensing
techniques.
Tracking a moving target
Phytoplankton (photosynthetic microbes) are essential players in the global climate system, producing roughly half of the world’s oxygen, removing carbon
dioxide and forming the base of the marine food web. There is a “sweet spot” in the ocean, where light from above and nutrients from below converge to create
an ideal environment for phytoplankton. The plethora of microbes in this layer form a ubiquitous open-ocean feature called the deep chlorophyll maximum
(DCM).
Open-ocean eddies, swirling pools of water, can be more than 60 miles across and last for months. Phytoplankton thrive when these eddies spin counter-
clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and bring nutrient-rich water from the depths up toward the surface.
“The research challenge facing our interdisciplinary team of scientists and engineers was to figure out a way to enable a team of robots—communicating with
us and each other—to track and sample the DCM,” said Brett Hobson, a senior mechanical engineer at MBARI and co-author of this study.
The DCM is typically found at depths of more than 300 feet, so it can’t be tracked with remote sensing from satellites, and its position can shift more than 100
feet vertically in just a few hours. This variability in time and space requires technology that can embed itself in and around the DCM and follow the microbial
community as it drifts in the ocean currents.
DeLong noted that these teams of coordinated robotic vehicles offer a vital step toward autonomous and adaptive sampling of oceanographic features. “Open-
ocean eddies can have a huge impact on microbes, but until now we haven’t been able to observe them in this moving frame of reference,” he explained.
“There is no limit to what can be achieved when you mate a team of collaborative scientists and engineers with a co-ordinated fleet of smart robots,” added
Karl. “The future is today!”
Page 12

Ovarro Completes Acquisition Of Datawatt
Remote monitoring specialist Ovarro has completed the acquisition of Datawatt, a Netherlands-
based technology and automation company serving the water and energy sectors.
Established in 1977, Datawatt provides technically advanced monitoring and telemetry solutions,
including remote terminal units (RTUs) and SCADA systems.
Ovarro, a subsidiary of Laurel Solutions, is a market leading provider of RTUs, acoustic leakage data
loggers, SCADA systems and intelligent analytics software for the global water industry, as well as oil
& gas, broadcast and transportation sectors.
Ovarro chief executive David Frost said: “The Ovarro management team are delighted to welcome
Datawatt to the Ovarro team. We are firmly committed to continued investment in Datawatt’s people,
technology and engineered solutions, so that together we may grow and develop our combined
range of products and software services for all our customers in markets around the world.”
Datawatt general manager Roy Gerding said: “The combination of Ovarro and Datawatt provides us with the opportunity to continue to support our established
end markets and customers whilst leveraging the financial and human capital of the Ovarro business to expand our market position around the world.”
Laurel Solutions chief executive Martin Carter added: “Ovarro’s acquisition of Datawatt continues to demonstrate the investment strategy to further develop
as an industry leading player in remote monitoring and control of critical assets, where safety, reliability, efficiency and productivity are of utmost importance.”
Global overview of national groundwater monitoring
International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre (IGRAC) published the first edition of a global overview of quantitative groundwater monitoring
networks at national scale. The overview provides details of groundwater monitoring programmes in 81 countries. IGRAC hopes the overview will encourage
more monitoring, data processing and interpretation.
Groundwater is the most abundant freshwater resource on the planet: it provides almost half of all drinking water worldwide, about 40 percent of water for
irrigated agriculture and about one third of water required for industry.
Groundwater is also a critical storage element for climate change adaptation. Managed wisely, land subsidence and seawater intrusion can be prevented.
However, aquifers are invisible and are often insufficiently understood and poorly managed.
IGRAC’s first overview of national monitoring programmes aims to stimulate better
management by collecting and analysing more data.
The overview by IGRAC shows that groundwater monitoring is centralised in most
countries. In other countries, regional authorities have their own programmes
and the collected data is not necessarily reported to the central government. For
example in Germany, where each federal state is responsible for collection, processing
and dissemination of data. Another example is Bolivia where there is no national
groundwater monitoring programme, only several local networks are in place.
The overview also shows that in some cases the monitoring started as a project that has
not always been continued. In several cases a regional/local network was established
as part of a funded project supported by an external party such as an international
development bank. This has been the case in Afghanistan and El Salvador. However, in some cases, the monitoring stopped after a project ends, for example
at Mali’s groundwater monitoring network.
Also shown by the overview, is the big difference in frequency of monitoring.
Countries reported frequencies of every 15 minutes, hourly, daily, weekly,
monthly, and several times yearly, or a combination of different frequencies.
More frequent monitoring (daily or more) are associated with the use of
automatic networks.
Automatic monitoring is used in at least 42 countries, from which 28 in
combination with manual monitoring. For 30 countries the monitoring method
was not reported.
Already in 2004, IGRAC identified the global need for monitoring groundwater,
data processing and related guidelines. Several initiatives by the centre led to
the launch of the Global Groundwater Monitoring Network (GGMN) programme
in 2012.
The programme gathered ground water experts in 50 countries with the
GGMN portal for storage, processing and dissemination of groundwater data
worldwide. The collected data has been used to produce an overview of 81
national monitoring programmes.
Page 13

Feature Article:
The year that the pandemic
changed the water industry
What will most people remember of 2020? It was the year that the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world and decimated countries. However as tragic as the crisis has
been and will be moving into 2021 there was some good that came of it, especially for the water industry. In this article we will look at some of the key positive
outcomes that the pandemic has helped to highlight and has changed the direction of the water industry.
The Digital Workforce
Before the pandemic hit there was a lot of commuting into offices and a lot of wasted time with people moving back and forth into work each day. The pandemic
hit and a lot of people, that could work from home, were forced to. The water company systems strained and there were lots of teething troubles in people
working remotely but the pain was withstood and people got comfortable with the concept of working from home. There was the acceptance of this too which, if
more than anything, was just as important. I remember as a assistant engineer working from home on the odd day as I had better software and facilities at home
(which was only 10 minutes in a car away) and there was almost shock horror and grudging acceptance that for a handful of days that this was a good outcome.
However, in the time of a global pandemic, where we all were forced to work from home then working from home has almost become the new normality.
There are of course a number of essential staff that can't work from home and the worry has to be, where we have a diminished workforce out on sites and
the likes whether the support in case of Health & Safety problems is still there. Fortunately in the past few years there have been a number of technological
developments that can help from a Health & Safety point of view from mobile phones and other widgets that detect sudden trips, slips and falls to geo-location
apps helping emergency services to get where they want to go. In fact the Emergency Services now react much quicker due to the use of artificial intelligence and
in particular machine learning that optimises the location of emergency responders that predict where the best place for them to be is (this is why you'll see an
ambulance in a lay-by seemingly doing nothing).
The pandemic also cause most of the industry events to go "digital" or "virtual," which, although it has numerous disadvantages has had huge benefits too. It has
meant that a conference or event in Singapore, Chicago or in fact anywhere in the world can be attended at a click of the button with no costs due to flights and
hotels and costs due to staff time limited to that of the actual conference. There is also the advantages for the conference speakers and hosts who normally have
to limit the conferences that they can attend, due to busy calendars, have been able to go from conference to conference. So what this year of disaster has done
is make collaboration with people a lot easier.
There are stories out from the industry where this has facilitated engineering design enabling projects to be delivered more efficiently that it could be done in
person. In fact current visualisation and the use of tools such as BIM and construction Digital Twins allows this to go one step further. If everything is digital it can
be accessed remotely and thus can be accessed from anywhere.
The Digital Workforce is where the current pandemic has allowed a leap forward in the way that we work to the extent that some water utilities are starting to
maximise the workforce that can work from home and closing or re-purposing buildings as a result.
Wastewater-based epidemiology
Wastewater-based epidemiology is something that has come to the forefront of the
wastewater industry as a way to track the prevalence of the SARS-COV2 in this pandemic.
It is a technique that has, quite frankly, been buried and not widely known about until the
pandemic hit. It is a fact a technique that has been around for quite some time although
used for a number of different areas. Primarily looking at hotspots for narcotics use in cities
enabling police forces to target areas of a city where drug use is becoming a problem. This
was in fact its first use in Italy in 2005 where a study looked at cocaine, THC, ketamine,
MDMA and heroine, and humane metabolites of these substances. WBE was subsequently
also used to determine the use of, for example, caffeine, nicotine, slimming aids and
alcohol. It has also proved possible to detect the use of new psychoactive substances (new
drugs) and trace waste discharges from drug production in this way. Examining sewage
also allows a differentiation to be made between the legal and illegal use of, for example,
pharmaceuticals. For example, it was shown that in various cities in the Netherlands, only
one third of the Viagra used was obtained legally with a doctor’s prescription.
It has also been used for a number of other pathogens to look at the outbreaks of disease
in areas of city.
In the Coronavirus pandemic the testing and visualisation of the spread of the disease has
been developed very rapidly. In Europe and the US the primary researchers and companies
that have kickstarted the development is KWR (the Dutch Water Research institute) and
Idrica (the rapidly expanding technology company). These companies had in fact been
working in this areas for many years and the adaptation of their approaches enabled them
to react very quickly to find out where peak areas of Coronavirus spread was happening.
KWR, the Dutch Water Research Institute was one of the first global organisations that Figure 1:KWR SARS-COV2 Infographic (care of KWR)
Page 14

found SARS-COV2 in sewage and developed a methodology for using
wastewater-based epidemiology to track the prevalence of the virus in
cities in Holland and the results of the testing allowed the detection of
the virus in whole populations up to six days in advance (figure 2).
Through the use of discreet sampling the prevalence of SARS-COV2 could
be tracked down to the neighbourhood level allowing decision makers to
make decisions down to individual areas limiting the financial impact of
the virus due to the ability to restrict movement in selected zones. This
can especially be seen in the work that Idrica did in cities such as Valencia
which showed a limited spread of the virus throughout the population.
Intermsofthedevelopmentofthewaterindustrythishasallowedcomplex
concepts to be explained and visualised for key policy-makers relatively
easily so that decisions can be made on public health, something that the
water industry and especially the wastewater industry is fundamentally
based upon.
It has to be questioned why there was so much of a focus on individual
testing and digital means, such as test and trace, were relied upon when
wastewater-based epidemiology would have achieved a similar goal
quicker, cheaper and more effectively.
An example of this is from a university in the USA where returning students were tested via swab testing and tested negative for Coronavirus. The wastewater-
based epidemiology picked up a positive test and everyone was tested once more. In the second round of testing two students tested positive and were isolated
preventing the spread of the disease to up to 150 other people. With case studies like this it is surprising that the technique has not been used more effectively
across the world. It is a learning point for the next virus, if unfortunately it does occur.
The Digital Twin
The concept of the Digital Twin, although unrelated to the Coronavirus pandemic has also come to light in the past year with several good examples cropping
up across the world. The first case-study has to be the city of Valencia,with yes you guessed it, Idrica and Global Omnium the companies involved. Although the
concept has been under-development for over ten years the result is clearly an operational Digital Twin.
This is where a number of concepts that have to be separated out between BIM, Construction Digital Twin and Operational Digital Twin.
BIM is defined in ISO 19650:2019 as the
"Use of a shared digital representation of a built asset to facilitate design, construction and operation processes to form a reliable basis for
decisions."
The first half of this in terms of the design and construction of a built asset - say a pump, a tank, a wastewater treatment works or a whole wastewater system
sounds very much like a Construction Digital Twin. The second half very much like an operational Digital Twin. This year work has been done by the SWAN Forum
on their representation of a Digital Twin and the graphic seen in Figure 3 defined
What is clear from the case studies that already exist and have been in development for many years are that the Digital Twin is a mixture of an operational model
of whatever plant or system that is being "twinned" together with the monitoring that is necessary to ensure that live updates from the "twin" can be received.
The key to this is making sure that the modelled representation of the physical asset is fully representative and that it is instrumented properly to ensure that
the outputs from the model with live data predict a true representation of what is happening in the time period that is necessary.
Figure 2: SARS-COV2 results for Amsterdam (from KWR)
Figure 3:SWAN Forum Digital Twin architecture (care of the SWAN Forum)
Page 15

What is key is that the right operation is modelled and that the instrumentation is installed correctly, with communication redundancy to ensure that the model
can be updated with the right data. To facilitate this and the whole Digital Transformation of the water industry the concept of the instrumentation life-cycle was
developed over the past couple of years.
When a Digital Twin is developed it has the potential to be a very powerful tool as it not only allows for visibility of what is currently going on but by using the
power of the model combined with situational awareness of the now it can be used to predict what will happen when the system as a whole changes. Which in
the wastewater system is almost continuously. This is why the first of the Digital Twins have concentrated on the relatively simplicity of the water distribution
network.
Green recovery and net-zero
As countries and their economies have been decimated by the pandemic there has been talk of a green recovery. The world has also talked about a drive towards
net-zero and operating on a more sustainable basis. There has also been, at least in the UK a lot of talk about pollutions and pollution reduction. There is a
number of potential areas, at least in the water industry, where this can be championed. This is especially the case in the UK where net-zero has been promised
by the water industry by 2030, a date that is only 9 years away. In doing this the "Green Recovery" can be used and a multi-faceted approach can be taken.
Let us take the concept of pollutions which promised an end to serious pollutions by the end of 2020 and has now recently promised an end to the impact of
CSOs. All of this is on the back of the Private Member's Bill which was in turn driven by the poor performance of England in terms of the quality of rivers. So how
do the concepts of the green recovery, net zero, and pollutions come together. The answer is in the wastewater Digital Twin or if you like the "smart wastewater
network."
This is a concept that has arguable been around for at least a couple of decades and some players within the water industry have been waiting for it to happen.
and driving the industry forward. By treating the whole wastewater collection network and treatment works as a system the hydraulics of the network can be
managed to ensure that as much wastewater that passes through the network is treated through the wastewater treatment works by (a) balancing the flow
of wastewater so that an event amount of water is treated, where possible and (b) where the system requires it to react to ensure that there is capacity in the
wastewater network to capture as much storm water as possible. This can be done by using machine learning to learn what impact that a rain storm is going to
have on the wastewater collection system.
Deviations from the predicted model and monitoring the impact on the system allows for detection of where there are blockages within system helping to alert
where these blockages will cause overflows to happen. By using such a system capacity is maximised allowing for a reduction in pollution events. This all seems
something unreal and science fiction but there are some applications that have developed and are available now.
By limiting pollutions the impact on the environment is limited getting better environmental results not only aquatically but also in terms of energy consumption
limiting the air pollution by making the energy consumption more balanced across the day, where possible. This sits neatly within the concepts of multi-variate
process control, real-time control and regulation via process-based control as raised by the Environment Agency under OPRA-PBC. At the time the concept was
raised the industry was not ready and the benefits were not clear. However, technologically the industry has developed and perhaps with the concept of the
green recover and net-zero there are the drivers to achieve this approach.
This is of course only part of the technological solutions that are available to the water industry and it will take a huge investment to achieve it. However the
alternative is to spend a lot more in investment to solve the problems another way. An example of this stems from the smart wastewater network that was setup
in Barcelona where a storm tank under the main square was to cost tens of millions compared to a smart wastewater network solution which cost a 1/10th of the
price. The bill to solve the pollution problem in England & Wales has been roughly costed as "over £100 billion." Could a smart wastewater network approach,
where justified, cost "over £10 billion," in reality no but it could of course make a dent in the very large bill that the water industry is facing to resolve the issue.
Conclusions
The last year has been tragic for the globe in terms of the Coronavirus Pandemic, but, from adversity often comes innovation and change as people adapt to new
ways of living. This has been the case for the water industry in the last year. We have discovered new ways of working and collaborating, not just on a national
basis, but on a international basis as well. The industry has used techniques that were quite frankly not been given the attention that it deserves are now front
and centre and providing nations and their decision makers with the right information at the right time.
In the meantime the industry has made a number of promises which it needs to deliver upon and in order to do this needs to take all of the opportunities that
are open to it to improve pollutions, increase operational efficiency and meet the net-zero targets.
Page 16

Case Study:
How Acoustic Water Leak Detection
Is Used To Tackle Water Loss
Water loss is one of the major challenges for water utilities, especially as the global shortage of this critical resource increases. One of the main reasons for
water loss is due to the creation of leaks in unseen pipes, which usually develop and expand over a long period of time. Water pipe deterioration leads to a
constant increase in operational costs for leak repair, pipe replacement, water waste, and energy waste. Catastrophic bursts are much more expensive to repair
than scheduled repairs of background leaks that are detected before surfacing.
Proactive detection and repair of background leaks have huge operational benefits as enormous amounts of water and energy are saved. Furthermore,
identifying 1 to 2 percent of critical pipe sections that cause over 80 percent of bursts and replacing them can be cost-effective in the long run.
Acoustic Leak Detection
One of the most successful methods for detecting and locating water leaks that frequently develop in the depths of buried piping is acoustics. In this method,
acoustic sensors are permanently installed on the water distribution network and automatically record samples of noises obtained from the water flow in the
pipes. In case there are any disturbances such as holes in the piping — i.e., leaks — various noises will be received to indicate this. Different types of pipes
and leaks will produce different noises (small vs. large leak, small vs. large diameters, pressure levels, iron vs. plastic pipes, asbestos cement, etc.). Combining
acoustic correlation sensors with appropriate analysis algorithms will achieve reliable results that distinguish between different noises and findings. The
sensors must be highly sensitive on the one hand — so that they can pick up abnormal noises in the piping — and on the other hand, they must be able to filter
background noises outside the pipeline (such as irrigation systems, truck traffic, and more).
AnIsraeliinnovativecompany,AquariusSpectrum,developedacousticsolutions thatenablewaterutilities toperformproactivemonitoringoftheirunderground
assets and hence detect background leaks in their initial stages of development and fix them before they surface and cause serious damage. These solutions,
based on sensitive correlating fixed and mobile sensors, can be applied in all types of pipes.
Each night, the sensors record the noise on the pipes and send this information to a cloud-based server. The signals are processed, correlation algorithms are
executed, and alerts are issued to the utility regarding leaks or malfunctioning appurtenances, such as hydrants and valves. Analyzed findings are displayed via
a user-friendly browser-based display. To date, the company’s technology is monitoring thousands of miles of municipal water pipelines worldwide, helping
water utilities reduce their non-revenue water (NRW) and their operations and maintenance (O&M) costs.
How A2A Tackles Its Water Leaks
Founded in 2008, A2A S.p.A. is considered the biggest multi-utility in Italy, with more than
12,000 employees and €6.5B in annual revenue. It generates, distributes, and markets
renewable energy, electricity, gas, integrated water supply, and waste management
services. From its headquarters in Brescia, Italy, A2A Ciclo Idrico (a company of the A2A
Group) operates more than 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) of iron water pipes, serving
citizens in the municipalities of Brescia and neighbouring towns (https://www.a2a.eu/en).
As part of A2A’s intensive efforts to increase their efficiency, they have looked for advanced
technologies that will enable them to reduce their water loss and energy costs. During
September 2019, the company initiated a leak-detection pilot with Aquarius, carried out in
Brescia City. Based on A2A’s GIS data, 39 acoustic correlating sensors have been installed
to cover around 15 km (~9 miles) of pipes (See Figure 1).
It should be noted that the pilot site is close to Brescia’s football stadium and despite heavy
traffic disruptions due to an important match, within two days all 39 sensors were installed and
activated (See Figure 2).
During the first week, 10 hidden leaks were found. One of them was a huge leak that had saturated
the ground within a few hours from its time of detection. The final step of the pilot was verifying
and pinpointing points of interest (POI) raised by the AQS-SYS fixed monitoring system supported
by smartphone-based mobile leak detection equipment. In total, 20 leaks were verified and
fixed in just a
few months (See
Figure 3).
Thanks to the successful pilot, the Italian utility has recently purchased 235 AQS
acoustic sensors that will allow it to continue monitoring the current area and
to expand to additional areas. The project continues to be accompanied by the
support of Aquarius’ technical team.
Figure 1:Sensor installation planning
Figure 3: Acoustic map of suspected leaks on the AQS-SYS UI
Figure 2: AQS underground acoustic sensor installation
Page 17

Facing ongoing influences such as climate change, dam owners are under increasing pressure to ensure the safety of their assets. The consequences of failure
are becoming more significant too, in light of factors like downstream urbanisation. With asset owners integrating new solutions to help them rise to the
challenge, Australia's Hunter Water has turned its eyes skyward in a bid to advance its asset monitoring performance to the next level.
As dam assets age, accurate monitoring becomes increasingly important to ensure safety. With the impact of broad trends such as increasing urbanisation and
global warming, the challenges facing dam owners and the potential consequences of failure are mounting.
Urbanisation, for example, is seeing more people living downstream of a dam than ever before. This represents a significant increase in the consequences of
failure and associated catastrophic risk. Meanwhile, global warming is introducing far more volatility to weather events, making them much harder to predict
and manage.
"The biggest problem with climate change, particularly with dams, is the unpredictability of precipitation, causing too much or too little water," says Professor
Mark Maslin FRGS, FRSA of the Department of Geography at University College London.
"Leakage through or under a dam can cause blowout. But if you have a sudden massive rainstorm, this can cause overtopping, and the water spills over the
top and cuts down through the dam, causing catastrophic failure. Climate change is already causing more intense rainfall bursts, which are shorter and more
unpredictable and are a major worry for dam owners."
Maslin continues: "Hot, dry summers are also creating problems. Dams don't like pressure to be released and lowering the level of water is also problematic
because it starts to put a strain on the dam structure."
In Australia, for example, which as the driest inhabited continent also has the highest per capita surface water storage capacity, the large number and size
of water storage assets is a particular challenge. Earlier this year a leak at a privately-owned irrigation dam in Queensland prompted evacuations and flood
warnings at the town of Talgai after a 3.5-metre-wide hole appeared in the structure, which was at maximum capacity.
Under the influence of climate change, Australia's already highly variable rainfall is likely to become far less predictable, with one in 20-year maximum rainfall
events predicted to become one-in-15-year or even one-in-five-year events by the end of the century.
At the same time, while dams are extremely long-lived, huge numbers are already many decades old. By 2025, nearly 75 percent of the 91,000 dams in the
U.S. could reach half a century in age. Nonetheless, even dams which have been constructed relatively recently can present problems. The spillway at another
Queensland dam, Paradise Dam near Bundaberg, was damaged during 2013. This dam was only built in 2005.
Ensuring Dam Safety
For dam safety engineers tasked with developing and maintaining systems to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that people downstream are not put at
risk from the dam owners' business activities, the growing consequences and changing risks have prompted a reappraisal.
Supported by field staff, dam safety engineers undertake asset monitoring and inspections
which include assessing if dams meet modern standards, and making sure that any risks
are effectively managed. Inspection and monitoring need to determine if there are any
trends that might indicate an emerging problem.
However, the need for comprehensive monitoring presents a number of challenges. "Dams
are very large assets, and very high or extreme consequences result if they are to fail,"
explains Daniel Turnbull, Dam Safety Engineer at the New South Wales (NSW)-based
Hunter Water.
Among other assets, Turnbull is responsible for the Grahamstown Dam in NSW. Constructed
between 1955 and 1965, Grahamstown is Hunter's largest drinking water supply dam,
providing 40 percent of water to the region and meeting up to 75 percent of the company's
daily supply requirements. It holds a reservoir of some 182,305 million litres behind a 5-km-
long embankment.
"You're doing your best to monitor all the key points, and in terms of inspecting that is fine.
Yet, considering actual reading of measurements it is very hard to have absolute coverage
of a dam," says Turnbull.
"It's not physically practical to monitor every aspect of the dam, especially with a dam like Grahamstown where we've got over 5 km of the embankment. That's
one of the big challenges we face, making sure that our monitoring is targeted and effective."
As Turnbull says: "The first thing is making sure that you don't become complacent about the risks that dams pose. We really need to make sure we have a good
understanding of what the potential failure modes are for our particular dams and target our monitoring towards those failure modes."
However, Grahamstown presents a number of additional challenges when executing effective monitoring, not least because the top of the dam is home to a
major road with an 80-kph speed limit.
Article:
Creating A Risk-Based Approach To
Dam Monitoring Maintenance
Hunter Water Grahamstown Dam embankment inspection
Page 18

"Grahamstown is a bit unique in that the shoulders of the dam are actually constructed of sand, which we know move quite a bit during normal operations. The
stable portion of the dam is the solid clay core which is directly underneath a road," says the Dam Safety Engineer.
Monitoring under these circumstances is costly and inconvenient for people trying to use the road and for local government.
"If we were to install permanent marks on the road, then every time we read them, we would have to shut one lane at least of that road. We would be putting
people in harm's way by monitoring permanent marks on the road. As a result, we were only really monitoring the embankments by visual inspection, where
there's nothing that's measurable," adds Turnbull.
Assessing Alternatives, Including Drone Surveillance
Faced with these challenges to effective monitoring and keen to ensure their assets are safe, Hunter began exploring alternative approaches to the traditional
measurement survey and visual inspection.
"We were looking at other options that we may be able to implement where we can actually get some measurements and start plotting trends rather than
relying on photos or people's opinions of what has changed over the years," says Turnbull.
One avenue they explored was the use of drones in surveying the site.
"We had tried some drone surveys, which are becoming cost effective. We could do them multiple times a year, and they provided us with the required coverage
of the embankment," says Turnbull.
However, he adds: "The issue was the accuracies were just not as good as a traditional survey. As opposed to the 1 to 2 millimetres of movement that can be
derived from satellite data, they were only picking up 20 to 30 millimetres."
Grahamstown Dam is also located very close to the end of the Newcastle airport runway, which had to be taken into consideration.
"Whenever we've got a drone in the air over that side of the dam, we've got to be in communication with air traffic control, and take the drone down every time
there's an aircraft movement. It wasn't overly good for the purpose of performing the work efficiently."
Having explored aerial surveying, in September Hunter Water signed a three-year contract with UK firm Rezatec to provide satellite-based data and geospatial
analytics to monitor structural and environmental changes at Grahamstown Dam.
Offered in partnership with Detection Services, Rezatec will use analysis of satellite-derived imagery and geospatial data, in addition to a wealth of historic
archive satellite data, to look retrospectively at changes and trends over time.
Exploring The Past With Future Technology
In order to determine any anomalous behaviour in the dam structure, it's important to use historical data to establish a baseline. Synthetic-aperture radar (SAR)
is a common form of radar that is used to create two-dimensional images and present a significant amount of archived data for analysis.
"The retrospective data analysis is key to providing the client with a better understanding of their dam," adds Camilla Braithwaite, Product Manager at Rezatec.
“We use SAR to monitor ground motion and multispectral data to monitor vegetation, both of which are good indicator for potential failure modes. The
traditional survey doesn’t provide enough data points, on which to provide peace of mind. Rezatec’s Dam Monitoring product uses three years’ of SAR data and
two years of multispectral data in the retrospective analysis, collected at 6-to-12-day intervals. It identifies anomalies, or observations outside the acceptable
baseline trend from this large tranche of data to notify dam operators, where they should direct their skills and resources."
Data from Hunter Water, such as water level information affecting movement, is overlayed with satellite data to help pinpoint exactly where issues are down to
a few millimetres of displacement. In addition to precise movement, satellite data can also pick up other indicators of problems with dam infrastructure, such
as vegetation moisture and vigour, using a two-year retrospective.
This is a point picked up by Turnbull who says: "We started off with a two-year retrospective analysis and over that period of time we had a couple of areas on
the dam where we had completed some work. We installed a couple of pipelines through the crest of the dam, so we had an open excavation for a short period
of time.
"On another occasion, we did some topsoiling of the embankment to try to generate some vegetation growth. During its retrospective analysis, Rezatec was
able to pick out exactly where that work had been undertaken at that period of time. That gave me confidence that they were picking up movement as well as
the vegetation vigour that they are looking at."
As Braithwaite says: "Water level and seasonality can affect vegetation. Adding these into the analysis means we can take these into account, and only identify
observations that are truly anomalous. Vegetation is a really nice indicator for seepage, which is obviously a real worry for dam owners. It's not something they
can spot straight away very easily. We can provide dam operators with an understanding of what's normal, benchmarking and then identifying anomalies that
can help direct their ground crew."
Switching To Satellite, But Keeping People
Despite some concerns, adopting high-tech observations from space is not suggestive of reducing the number of inspections and staff. Instead, it enables
resources to be more efficiently focused on potential problems before they become significant issues, as well as reducing the number of unnecessary inspections.
The Hunter Water team still carries out routine daily inspections, with team members visually inspecting to note changes.
"We wanted something to complement that," adds Turnbull. "Previously, if they noticed an issue, we would either increase our monitoring frequency to a
Page 19

couple of times a day to try and ascertain if it is changing, or if we're still not sure then we would undertake further detailed investigations where we might be
excavating within the embankment to try and get some additional information. Now, if visual monitoring picks up that there's a potential issue, we're able to
refer to satellite monitoring and reveal if there is something measurable to support that theory."
Professor Maslin expands on this idea: "Geospatial analysis doesn't replace people; it makes them more efficient. Instead of excellent engineers running around
to make sure that they can cover however many dams, they can have a monthly check on each of their dams and use their skills to identify which structures
are causing concern and where.
"We know that most times, dams are fine. It means that you can focus your resources and use them as efficiently as possible and use the expertise you have.
With new technology, you have to be absolutely sure that this is going to improve efficiency and improve safety."
This is a point echoed by Turnbull, who says: "I liked the thought of being able to use whatever system we came up with to provide an early warning system,
so the satellite monitoring was perfect given that data are being collected every 11 or 12 days; we can start to see changes over that much shorter frequency.
Another aspect was again something unique to Grahamstown with its 5 km of embankment.
"Trying to cover that embankment length with a traditional technique, there's nothing to say that if the issue was to arise, it wouldn't be directly between
two monitoring points. You may not pick up any movement at all at our formal monitoring points, but the dam could fail directly in between them. Satellite
monitoring, just because of the coverage it provides, gives us a more holistic view of what's happening with the dam."
Consistency And Safety
Dams are assets that have long lives, with dam safety engineers inevitably inheriting these structures that other people have been monitoring and maintaining
over a long period of time.
Satellite-based geospatial data analysis provides a high degree of consistency even as the employment market becomes more fluid and roles change every few
years. The use of frequent millimetric surveys also allows asset owners to go beyond regulatory requirements to establish a key measure to assess asset risk.
"Regulations for an extreme consequence category dam require a movement survey once a year, for a high consequence category dam, then it's every two years.
We wanted to have a bit more scrutiny than the bare minimum that we're required to have," adds Turnbull.
Satellite observations also address the challenge to increase the frequency of monitoring remote dam assets.
"In Australia, we've got some dams in rural areas which take several hours drive or flights to get there. In terms of being able to monitor those sites without
having to send a team of surveyors out, there to do it is very attractive," adds the dam engineer.
More importantly, though, satellite observations are repeatable, testable, and achievable at a much higher frequency and more accurately than physically
sending a survey team out to a site. These key abilities are becoming far more significant, considering climate change and other megatrends like urbanisation.
"With carefully thought through monitoring, you should be able to understand exactly how your dam or dams are performing, so you know what is normal and
more importantly what is not," says Ian Garside, the Director at project partner ProjectMax.
"Robust monitoring can go further and allow you to manage the risks across your reservoir portfolio, helping to drive your business and regulation in a targeted
way. Possibly most importantly, though, good monitoring takes you from managing your dams reactively to proactively, with all the benefits that will bring."
Page 20

Water, Wastewater & Environmental Monitoring Virtual
13th - 14th October 2021
The WWEM Conference & Exhibition has been changed to a virtual conference and exhibition for 2021 and a physical conference
and exhibition in 2022. Details on WWEM Virtual will be released in the coming months but it is sure to include huge amount of
technical workshops and events for attendees to enjoy.
International Water Association Digital Water Summit
15th-18th November 2021 - Euskalduna Conference Centre, Bilbao, Spain
In 2021, the first edition of the IWA Digital Water Summit will take place under the tag-line “Join the transformation journey”
designed to be the reference in digitalisation for the global water sector. The Summit has a focus on business and industry, while
technology providers and water utilities will be some of the key participants that will discuss and shape the agenda of the Summit.
The programme includes plenary sessions, interactive discussions, side events, exhibition, technical visits, and social events
Sensor for Water Interest Group Workshops
The Sensors for Water Interest Group has moved their workshops for the foreseeable future to an online webinar format. The next
workshop is on 3rd February 2021
3rd February 2021 - Integrating data from sensors in water & wastewater networks
10th March 2021 - Monitoring wastewater flow
WWT Innovation Conference
3rd - 4th March 2021
Ofwat’s vision puts innovation at the heart of industry strategy and this event will showcase how this can be actively delivered in
2021 and beyond. Building on the success of the last eight years, the 2021 WWT Water Industry Innovation Digital Conference will
bring the industry together online to share best practice, align stakeholders and drive an innovative, resilient and collaborative
water sector for the future.
WEX Global 2021
28th - 30th June 2021 - Valencia, Spain
The WEX Global Conference. Sponsored by Idrica is currently due to take place in Valencia in Spain in June 2021. The conference
concentrates on the circular economy and smart solutions to resolve some of the global water industry's issues
Page 21
Conferences, Events,
Seminars & Studies
Conferences, Seminars & Events
2021 Conference Calendar
Due to the current international crisis there has been a large amount of disruption in the conference calendar. A lot of workshops have
moved online at least in the interim and a lot of organisations are using alternative means of getting the knowledge out there such as
webinars popping up at short notice. Do check your regular channels about information and events that are going on. Also do check on
the dates provided here as they are the best at the time of publishing but as normal things are subject to change.

WIPAC Monthly - January 2021

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to WIPAC Monthly - January 2021

Similar to WIPAC Monthly - January 2021 (19)

More from Water Industry Process Automation & Control

More from Water Industry Process Automation & Control (16)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

WIPAC Monthly - January 2021