WIPAC Monthly - October 2020

WIPAC MONTHLYThe Monthly Update from Water Industry Process Automation & Control
www.wipac.org.uk Issue 9/2020- October 2020

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 - 11
Pollution, Pollution, everywhere..................................................................................
In this month’s feature article we look at the recent Private Member’s Bill on inland pollution in the UK and look
at what the situation in the UK actually is and see what both the Environment Agency, OFWAT and the Water &
Sewerage Companies have already been doing to resolve the issues.
12-14
The anthropogenic water cycle.....................................................................................
To continue the theme of pollution and control of the water & wastewater system we look back at the third WIPAC
White-paper which looked at the anthropogenic water cycle and the impact it has on the natural environment.
The paper then looks at the data and analytics need to control the cycle.
15 - 20
A review of smart wastewater networks......................................................................
In our second retrospective article this month we look back on what we should be doing to put smart wastewater
networks in place and how they can be a solution to enable management of the wastewater network.
21-24
Workshops, conferences & seminars............................................................................
The highlights of the conferences and workshops in the coming months. 25-26

From the Editor

The issue that seems to have been most public this month, at least in the UK, is all around pollution and how it such
a huge issue in both England & Wales right now. This started with the environmental performance of the water
companies and how it seems to have deteriorated and culminated in a media campaign that seems to have led to a
Private Member’s Bill being raised in the Houses of Parliament around the issue of pollution in the wastewater system.
As a result of this I have taken the opportunity to use this latest issue to review the bill in the latest feature article and
compare it to the plans that OFWAT, the Environment Agency and of course the water companies have either delivered
or are in the throes of delivering at the current time.
What the bill actually goes to show is the lack of general knowledge of how the industry works in England & Wales and
the good work that it does do. It also highlights the lack of knowledge as to the complexity of the industry and how with
things can’t be done with a snap of the fingers and a few hundreds of millions of pounds worth of investment.
What is in fact needed is a systematic approach and so I have taken the chance to bring into this latest issue a pair of
articles that have been in previous WIPAC Monthlies to show that the water industry, as a whole, has been planning
solutions to the dilemma for quite some time. The main problem of course is where is the investment prioritised. Is it on leakage, it is on water resources
making sure that everyone has clean, fresh drinking water or it is it on protecting the customers from internal flooding, clearing up the consequences of
sewer misuse and protecting the environment. In truth it is of course a little of everything but there is a limited amount of investment that goes into each
asset management period. There is only so much that can be done at anyone time whilst providing a service at the current investment levels. Yes there is the
potential to protect the environment for a little bit more money but then that affects the central stakeholder to the industry, the customer.
So what does the industry do? Where do we go and how do we resolve the issues that are being currently highlighted as a problem. The solution, like
everything is a mixture of things it is certainly a case of stakeholder management and reducing the upstream risks. Sewer misuse is something that is very
costly to the water industry and using a public awareness campaign is the way to go to reduce the annual bill of approximately £100million that the water
industry pays to unblock the sewers, let alone the bill to insurance companies that have to clear up after the mess. Couple this with investment in infiltration
reduction and monitoring of the wastewater network and then there is the potential progress for the Digital Transformation of the Water Industry to support
giving greater situational awareness. However this, in reality, is a number of years ahead as although monitoring of both the wastewater collection system
and more recently the wastewater treatment works is happening to manage the quantity of water being received to expand that monitoring into a number of
different applications to help an intelligent wastewater network will require a significant amount of research and development.
In the meantime we have events like the WIPAC Flow Forum that is there to share the knowledge and identify the areas of research. For those of you who are
interested do join us on 11th November at 9:00am (UK time) for what promises to be an interesting day of all things flow related.
Have a good month and of course stay safe,
Oliver

Virtual Flow Forum is set for 11th
November
This month the agenda for the WIPAC Virtual Flow Forum has been set and
will be going ahead on 11th November 2020 at 9:00am (UK Time). The Flow
Forum is something that typically happens as a live event at the Water,
Wastewater & Environmental Monitoring Conference that takes place
biennially at the Telford International Centre. However the Coronavirus
pandemic has seen the 2020 edition of WWEM delayed until May 2021.
The decision was taken in collaboration with International Labmate (the
organisers of WWEM) to hold a virtual flow forum on the day that it should
have been going ahead physically.
This will provide some taster events for people who normally attend the
show. The Virtual Flow Forum is a free event and will be hosted on Microsoft
Teams and is being supported by International Labmate and Z-Tech Control
Systems.
This year’s Virtual Flow Forum will feature three session of three speakers.
The three sessions will have a strong concentration of flow to full treatment, its measurement and management. In the first session we will hopefully be hearing
from an as yet unnamed speaker about how flow measurement and management is changing in the current asset management period (AMP) and what steps
have already been taken to manage flow throughout the wastewater network. The second session will build on the first session and we will look at the strategies
that the water companies can take and have already taken to take even more steps to manage flow. The third session will look at some of the instrumentation
measurement systems that are available and how they can be applied to the management of flow. This is a taster event to what will hopefully be happening at
WWEM next May where we will follow up on the issues and activities that have been taken and the challenges that the industry already faces.
To view the brochure for the Virtual Flow Forum then please visit https://bit.ly/WIPACVFF. If you are on LinkedIn (and I hope this is most readers) then please
register for the event at http://bit.ly/VFFLI and if you just want to turn up on the day and join the Virtual Flow Forum then you can do so at https://bit.ly/
WIPACFlowForum
Northumbrian Water uses satellites to mitigate risk from trees
Northumbrian Water has started using satellite positioning and mobile mapping technology to manage safety risks posed by trees on its sites. The water company
is using surveying technology from Mobile GIS Services (MGISS) to reduce the time taken to plan tree inspections, improved data sharing and reduced the
production of paper plans and reports.The MGISS solution combines a high accuracy positioning system with mobile data collection apps and Geographical
Information System (GIS) software in a field-to-office workflow.
“As a land owner and employer we have a duty of care to ensure that anyone on our sites is not exposed to risk of harm posed by falling branches, for example,”
commented Stuart Pudney, conservation and land manager at Northumbrian Water. “We manage this by undertaking regular inspections which inform remedial
works and additional specialist assessments.”
Prior to the project with MGISS, Northumbrian Water undertook a study to identify trees on sites located within an area stretching from Berwick-upon-Tweed to
the North Yorkshire Moors and Carlisle. Trees are regularly inspected with the results informing resurvey intervals. Since the start of this project around 2,500 tree
inspections have been carried out across 569 individual sites.
“The previous tree management process was both time and paper heavy,” added Stephanie Bryant, conservation advisor at Northumbrian Water. “We produced
location plans ahead of the field work and then completed paper surveys as we inspected trees. On return to the office this data was manually entered into a
spreadsheet that in turn was large and cumbersome and was failing to meet our evolving requirements.”
Northumbrian Water had already completed a number of asset management projects with MGISS so when it was unable to find an out-of-the box solution that
was both flexible and cost effective, Dominic Flatley, a business analyst at NWL approached the MGISS team for help. MGISS was able to demonstrate how, with
some additional configuration, technology already deployed within the organisation could be used to improve tree risk management.
The implemented solution included ArcGIS Workforce, part of the Esri Geospatial Cloud, for inspection task management, ArcGIS Collector for survey data
collection together with Arrow 100 GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) hardware to accurately capture tree locations.
The solution was brought together with an ArcGIS Online Web app dashboard providing tools for high level insight and reporting.
“The agile approach by MGISS meant that we had a cost effective, working solution in no time,” continued Bryant. “We have achieved instant time savings as we
no longer need to double handle data and reduced our environmental impact with significant paper savings. In addition we have improved communication with
subcontractors and can easily produce management reports.”
Page 4
Industry News

Northumbrian Water awards cloud computing transformation
project
United Utilities rolls out world’s largest network of NB IoT water
leak detectors
The world’s largest network of water leak loggers using powerful Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity is taking shape in the North West.
United Utilities will install 24,000 Narrow band Internet of Things( NB IoT) acoustic devices as part of an ongoing £30 million rollout of loggers which started
in 2019.The new loggers join a growing arsenal of innovative ideas United Utilities are using in the battle to reduce leakage, including satellite technology, AI
and specially trained water sniffer dogs.
The company has pledged to reduce leakage by a fifth by 2025.
United Utilities leakage technical manager Paul Parr explained:
“Narrow band internet of things, or NB IoT, has a great advantage over the standard 2G technology used by most acoustic loggers because its bandwidth
allows lots of data to be uploaded quickly.
“In the past, we have occasionally struggled with connectivity from loggers which are housed underground inside chambers with thick metal lids and
underneath parked cars. We can lose vital time if there’s a leak, because we only receive the data once a day.
“The NB IoT loggers means we can guarantee we get the data when we need it. In early trials the technology kept our loggers 100% connected, which is a
massive step change.”
The new loggers make United Utilities’ programme of logger investment world-beating for a second time. As well as having the largest estate of NB IoT
loggers on the planet, by the time the programme ends in 2021 United Utilities will have installed 100,000 acoustic loggers in total – more than any
other company globally.
The current phase of work to install the NB IoT loggers starts this month and is due to be completed in April 2021.
Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, has been awarded a leading role on a new cloud computing initiative to help deliver operational efficiencies
and enhance customer service for Northumbrian Water, one of the UK’s leading utility providers. Commenting on the contract award, Martin Jackson, Head of
Strategy and Product Management at Northumbrian Water, said:
“Atos demonstrated that it both shares our values and had the ability to provide a compelling solution, combining a strong UK team on the ground with the
experience of delivering similar successful projects. We are looking forward to working closely with Atos team over the term of the contract.”
With its industry leading Microsoft Azure expertise, Atos is working alongside Northumbrian Water to migrate the first wave of 3 data processing and storage
applications (out of circa 35 applications in the framework) to the cloud over a three-year span.
Andy Corkhill, Vice President Energy & Utilities, Atos UK & Ireland, said:
“As the new preferred partner of Northumbrian Water for the first wave of applications on the Cloud Migration Framework, this project will be the anchor in
the first stages of delivering successful digital transformation, both through the framework and first wave of applications. An agile and efficient utilities sector
is vital to the UK, and embracing digitisation is pivotal in providing a sustainable, focused service for our customers in a digital society.”
The contract is the first of several frameworks to be awarded under an extensive digital transformation initiative that stretches across Northumbrian Water’s
operations.
Northumbrian Water will benefit from improved agility, flexibility and control and, as a result of the programme, will be able to deliver enhanced customer
experience. The project will increase the reliability of delivering sustainable clean water to over 4.5 million households across the whole of their company
supply area which comprises the Northumbrian, Essex and Suffolk regions of England.
It will also help Northumbrian Water drive down operating costs and improve overall efficiency by deploying cloud services across the organisation.
According to Steve George, Client Partner, Energy and Utilities at Atos, migrating data processing and storage to the cloud will help Northumbrian Water
enhance security and ensure future scalability, whilst also becoming more operationally efficient.
He added:
“This project, and the wider digital transformation of utilities, will ultimately enable consumers to benefit from more efficient suppliers, improved resilience
and customer service.”
Having been selected as the preferred partner for the first wave on the Cloud Migration Framework, Atos has worked closely with the IS team at Northumbrian
Water on the migration process of the initial 3 applications
Page 5

Affinity Water pioneers new AI driven open data sharing in water
sector first
Affinity Water has used AI driven technology to manage the impact of water use in relation to weather patterns and Covid19 on water demand which it plans
to share as an open data model with other interested water companies. In the past PCC (Per Capita Consumption) measurements have only been available for
analysis every three months, which means understanding incidents such as significant weather changes, water usage campaigns or an outbreak of an infectious
disease with subsequent water use messaging such as the Covid19 lockdown can be measured and assessed far sooner. This in turn will allow water companies
to meet water use performance targets in the longer term. Using an AI driven system that measures in real time the water balance at a DMA level (District
Metered Area) Affinity Water’s data scientists have been able to accurately predict PCC use across its network and three regions in real-time while also taking
into account seasonal demand and weather patterns.
The new AI systems use a collection of analytical tools that belong to the Distributed Machine Learning Community with contributions from many developers.
More specifically the Affinity scientists used “xgboost” a gradient boosting machine created by Tianqi Chen. Using the new AI systems Affinity Water data
scientists were able to distinguish between previous periods of hot weather and high demand and this year’s increased high demand for water taking into
account Covid19. This represents a major breakthrough for the industry more widely.
Andrew Morris, Affinity Water’s Chief Information Officer said:
“What is new is the idea to use fast logging to infer domestic consumption as well as adopting the powerful machine learning technique known as extreme
gradient boosting that has recently been dominating applied machine learning and Kaggle competitions (the World’s largest data science community) for
structured or tabular data. Our model was completed in four weeks, validated against existing data and then we developed a PCC data dashboard to allow our
PCC team access to the real-time data on daily PCC use. We can now model scenarios, to see the expected PCC based on a normal year and the expected PCC
based on changes such as the Covid19 lockdown or other major events. This is a major breakthrough and as we believe open data is so important to the water
industry and to our customers’ we intend to share our new systems openly with the industry. In the future this will allow us to plan better for other abnormal
events including weather patterns and to be able to monitor the impact much more closely of our work to reduce PCC through our other campaigns as well as
it will give us more real-time insight.“
“First for a water company to openly share data science models like this”
He went on to explain the importance of sharing the breakthrough with others in the industry – describing it as a first for a water company to openly share data
science models like this.
“As a next step we have developed a customer level model to predict the water usage movement for each customer at any time. We are releasing the model
openly for all water companies to use freely to benefit the industry. It’s a first for a water company to openly share data science models like this.”
“ In the future we hope there will be more open data, and more sharing of proven data models which can ultimately help us all deliver a better service and
better value to our customers more quickly. We already use similar data science methods to identify interruptions to supply and to identify leakage and these
are already proving highly valuable.
“The next few steps of the PCC modelling journey involve modelling leakage-free DMA consumption on case by case basis leading to an accurate unmeasured
consumption model, finally using all of the models to accurately predict the total demand and then using the unmeasured and customer level models to
distribute the totals appropriately across every household automatically, every day.
“There is so much value we have already gained from data science and as we further roll out our digital twin capability Affinity Water will change the way we
operate in many areas of the business and give a whole different level of insight into how we can be more effective across the water sector. “
Page 6

Philip Dunne MP launches new Bill to tackle river pollution
Rt Hon Philip Dunne, MP for Ludlow, has today published his Private Member’s Bill designed to tackle river pollution from untreated sewage and improve water
quality.
In 2019, raw sewage was discharged into rivers across England and Wales for over 1.5 million hours, compromising vital habitats for wildlife and endangering
the health of people who use the rivers for recreation.
Philip Dunne MP, who is also chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee, said:
“Our rivers are a vital part of our natural heritage. It is right the Government has committed to restoring at least three quarters of our waters to their natural
state.
“But it is clear from last week’s latest assessment from the Environment Agency that we are a long way from achieving that, with fewer than one in six of our
rivers in good health. This threatens the aquatic life and iconic species that rely on these precious habitats, such as freshwater fish, kingfishers, otters and
dippers.
“The discharge of untreated sewage is a major part of the problem, entering our rivers from the very treatment works whose purpose is to clean it up. Our
regulations and investment have not kept pace with changes in behaviour and pressure from development, so now pollutants enter our rivers untreated, with
the perpetrators licensed to spill.
“The River Severn and its tributaries the Clun, Corve, Kemp, Onny, Rea, Teme and Worfe all flow through my constituency. They are nothing like as healthy as
when I was a child, but they should be.
“That is why I have brought forward this Bill, which aims to cut discharges of raw sewage into our rivers - protecting our precious habitats for wildlife and people
to enjoy.”
The Sewage (Inland Waters) Bill places a duty on water companies to ensure that untreated sewage is not discharged into rivers and other inland waters. The
Bill will require water companies to set out plans progressively to reduce their reliance on combined sewer overflows (CSOs).
It proposes increasing levels of transparency, as firms will be mandated to report publicly not just on the frequency and extent of sewage discharges from CSOs
and any other sewer catchment assets, but also on the impact on water quality as this is enabled by advances in technology.
The Bill also proposes measures to upgrade drainage infrastructure to separate household sewage from surface water drainage, helping reduce the risk of
overspills. It includes measures to reduce harmful products such as non-biodegradable wet wipes, commercial fats and oils from being disposed down the drains.
It also proposes measures to expand the number of inland bathing waters and establish targets to increase those classified as “good” or “excellent”.
Widespread support from environmental charities and NGOs
The Bill has widespread support from environmental charities and NGOs.
Mark Lloyd, CEO of the Rivers Trust commented:
“We are very grateful to Philip Dunne MP for taking on this very important issue with such vigour after The Rivers Trust raised it with him earlier this year. We
hope that this Bill will be converted into legislation urgently. Changing weather patterns, population growth, more plastic items being flushed down toilets and
an historic lack of investment in infrastructure all conspire to cause raw sewage to pollute our precious rivers far too often. We need to get a grip of this wicked
problem and make our water environment a place that inspires delight, rather than disgust.”
According to Ali Morse, Water Policy Manager at The Wildlife Trusts and chair of environmental coalition Blueprint for Water, the Bill could be the driving force
behind big changes to benefit people and wildlife, encouraging water companies to implement more ‘nature-based’ solutions to protect the waterways. These
include purpose-built ponds to capture rainwater, stopping it from overwhelming sewers and releasing raw sewage into rivers.
She said:
“Regulators and Government must ensure water companies prioritise these measures. Customers want to see this too. People expect rivers to be clean
enough to swim in, and healthy enough to support thriving wildlife.”
Guy Linley-Adams, solicitor with Salmon and Trout Conservation described the Bill as “a welcome and necessary correction” to the post-privatisation
legislation for controlling sewage pollution of rivers, streams and lakes.
He added:
“As we leave the EU, we need to increase the level of ambition and this Bill does that. All sides in this debate, including water companies, recognise that we
need to build back better post-Covid, including in our water infrastructure, so this Bill deserves, and I’m sure will get, very strong cross-party support.”
Page 7

Partech (Electronics) Ltd & In-Situ Inc Join Forces
Partech Instruments and In-Situ Inc. this month have announced that they are now one
company. By joining forces with In-Situ, Partech will be able to tap into the resources of
a larger company to expand our product portfolio and service capabilities and provide
even greater value to our customers in the UK and around the world.
In-Situ has long been recognized as a leading manufacturer of environmental
monitoring equipment and software. With the recent acquisition of ChemScan Inc, a
manufacturer of automatic chemical analysis systems based in Wisconsin, In-Situ has
also built a presence in the drinking water and wastewater markets. Partech’s press
release revealed the motivations for the move
“We know In-Situ well. We’ve been integrating their RDO technology into our dissolved
oxygen sensors since 2013, and we share values centred around providing exceptional
customer service and developing innovative instrumentation and software that’s both
reliable and easy to use. With additional UK facilities and representation in the U.S.,
Europe, Asia and Australia, we are ideally placed to support customers globally.”
“We’re thrilled to combine forces with the Partech team,” says In-Situ CEO John Pawlikowski. “They’ve been a valued OEM partner for years, and we share values
centred around providing phenomenal customer service and developing innovative instrumentation and software that’s both reliable and easy to use. With
Partech we will expand our already outstanding UK team, our product range and our service capabilities.”
Partech Joint Managing Director Angus Fosten says the companies’ combined strength will have an impact in a competitive landscape. “By building on our
existing relationship with this acquisition, we’re able to combine our experience and do more for our customers in the UK and around the world,” he says.
“It’s exciting to consider the advantages of blending Partech technologies with In-Situ’s capabilities in data management and product and software development,”
adds Partech Joint Managing Director Roger Henderson.
Thames Water’s digital programme nominated for 11 major IT
awards
Thames Water has been named as a finalist in two major IT awards as it continues to develop and embrace new technology to help customers and the environment.
Britain’s biggest water company is short-listed in eight categories in the UK IT Industry Awards on November 11 and three categories in the UK App Awards on
November 12. The UK IT Industry Awards is the largest and best-known event in the technology industry calendar, setting the performance benchmark in IT,
recognising exceptional people, projects and technology innovation. The UK App Awards celebrate and reward excellence in apps developed in the UK or for
the UK market. Thames Water’s nominations include the migration of millions of customers to a new billing platform, the introduction of remote working for
thousands of customer service, IT and field staff during the Covid pandemic, and a bespoke app that helps in the fight against leaks.
Thames Water this year found and repaired a record number of leaks, hit its regulatory target and reduced overall leakage from its 20,000-mile network of pipes
by 15 per cent in one year.
It now has ambitious plans to continue modernising London’s Victorian network by ramping-up the use of advanced digital technology and smart data to achieve
a further 20 per cent region-wide reduction in leakage by 2025, and 50 per cent by 2050.
Mike Potter, Thames Water’s chief technology officer, said:
“With 15 million customers, we’re on a mission to transform the way we work through rapid delivery.
“Our digital programme has galvanised the business and revolutionised the way we engage with customers and users of technology. 
“We’re committed to working with our customers and front-line staff to co-create the apps and digital tools we need to ensure that our network is working
efficiently.
“Being nominated as finalists in no less than eight categories in the UK IT Industry Awards is a huge acknowledgement of the hard work of the team, the leap the
organisation has made to new agile ways of working and the high quality of the apps we’ve been developing.”
The eight UK IT Industry Award nominations are: IT Service & Support Professional of the Year; IT Project Team of the Year; IT Team of the Year, AI/ML Project of
the Year; Digital Transformation Project of the Year; Best User Engagement Project of the Year; Inspirational Individual of the Year and Best Use of Cloud Services.
The apps short-listed for the UK App Awards 2020 are Productivity or Utility App of the Year; B2B or Business App of the Year and the IoT App of the Year.
Page 8

New App Empowers Community Water Monitors Understanding
Landscape
The Water Data Collaborative (WDC) released this month a new web-based application and accompanying StoryMap to help community scientists better
understand the landscape that drains into the body of water they are monitoring. Chesapeake Conservancy is a founding member of WDC, and the Pisces
Foundation funded the Chesapeake Conservancy Conservation Innovation Center’s work on this project.
The new app will help existing monitoring programs by providing a high-resolution look at the landscape conditions, which can be compared to observed water
quality trends. For groups or individuals that are looking for opportunities for restoration and conservation, this tool can also be used to target the most at-risk
areas.
“It is well established that when a watershed experiences more than 10% impervious land cover, water quality becomes degraded. Nationally, and despite
almost 50 years of the Clean Water Act, almost 70% of our waterways remain unassessed. This is where the work of community science monitors come in, but
to make the most of their efforts, it is important to plan monitoring activities in a way that will lead to the most useful data for the questions they are trying
to answer,” said Chesapeake Conservancy Geospatial Analyst Emily Wiggans. “This tool can help with those planning efforts by ensuring the most at-risk and
urbanized watersheds can be identified for monitoring. It can also be used in efforts to identify target catchments for conservation or restoration, if for example, a
catchment has a high portion of land with impervious surfaces, such as buildings and roads, landscape restoration efforts may be able to improve water quality.”
“The Conservancy’s Conservation Innovation Center has yet again set an incredibly high bar in making their high resolution land use land cover data accessible to
community scientists and decision makers,” said Commons Executive Director John Dawes. “This data represents the future of what’s possible for environmental
decision making. We couldn’t be more fortunate to have a partner like this at the table to help WDC continue to innovate and uplift community monitoring
programs across the nation.”
“Sound data underpin important water management policies and regulations,” said Dr. Jerad Bales, Executive Director of the Consortium of Universities for the
Advancement of Hydrologic Science (CUAHSI). “As a member of the WDC, CUAHSI values community water data. Community water monitoring data collected
by volunteers have been shown to fill important data gaps in many basins, and these data often are of the same quality as data collected by agencies. The
understanding of landscape conditions provided by this tool will assist in planning new community monitoring and will provide enlightened interpretation of
existing data.”
The tool is initially intended for use in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, with hopes to expand in the future to other areas where there is additional available
high-resolution land cover. It is intended that the tool will be updated as the latest land cover data from Chesapeake Conservancy is updated in 2021.
While other similar applications exist, this tool helps to demonstrate more precisely the land cover at a finer scale using the newest National Hydrography
Dataset (NHD Plus HR Beta). While the dataset is currently in beta version, it presents the most high-resolution national water dataset to date, at the smallest
catchment-scale unit.
The Water Data Collaborative’s mission is to grow and maintain an inclusive community of trained and qualified community water scientists who employ best
available practices and technologies to provide data that enable the protection and restoration of our nation’s waterways. waterdatacollaborative.org
The Chesapeake Conservancy’s Conservation Innovation Center (CIC) was established in 2013 to use cutting-edge technology to empower data-driven
conservation and restoration. Just as the use of technology changed the corporate world and made it more efficient, technology can do the same for the
conservation movement. Through national and international partnerships, the CIC makes this data accessible for restoration professionals to practice precision
conservation, yielding greater impact with fewer resources. www.chesapeakeconservancy.org/conservation-innovation-center
Chesapeake Conservancy’s mission is to conserve and restore the natural and cultural resources of the Chesapeake Bay watershed for the enjoyment, education,
and inspiration of this and future generations. We empower the conservation community with access to the latest data and technology. As principal partner
for the National Park Service on the Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network and the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail, we helped create 194
new public access sites and permanently protect some of the Bay’s special places like Werowocomoco, Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, Harriet Tubman
Underground Railroad National Historical Park, and Fort Monroe National Monument.
UK 2050: Water innovation strategy launched
The UK’s first water innovation strategy has been published setting a new vision for transformational change through innovation across the UK water sector.
The strategy, which has been developed through extensive engagement and collaboration with more than 150,000 people, will facilitate open collaboration and
deliver greater value for customers and the environment. It will make the industry’s approach to innovation more efficient and effective while also helping to
ensure that Ofwat’s Innovation Fund is targeted at projects that will deliver the most benefit for the sector. Built around the delivery of seven key themes and
supported by four principles that will underpin how innovation is delivered (see attached), the strategy sets out a clear roadmap to achieving the short, medium
and long terms goals of the sector.
It outlines plans for a “virtually-integrated” Centre of Excellence that will act as a hub for global innovation, providing open and equal access to all interested in
contributing to the strategy’s objectives.
The draft strategy was launched in July, having been developed by the 19 UK water companies and facilitated by UKWIR and ARUP. It was co-created over the
summer with input from hundreds of stakeholders through open workshops, 121 interviews and a digital campaign called ‘fresh thinkers this way’ which helped
to reach a wider audience beyond the water sector.
The final version of the strategy can be downloaded here
Page 9

First-Of-Its-Kind Surface Water Atlas Brings Together 35 Years Of
Satellite Data
The Atlas of Global Surface Water Dynamics illustrates the changes in the Earth’s lakes, rivers and wetlands over time. The Atlas provides a better understanding
of the consequences climate change and human actions have for the planet’s surface water resources. It is impossible to overstate the critical importance of
water in our daily lives. Surface water bodies – including lakes, ponds and rivers – are particularly important as sources of water for domestic, industrial and
agricultural use.
As the Earth’s surface water is intensely dynamic, our knowledge about where waterbodies can be found has not always been accurate. Waterbodies move,
whole lakes dry up and new rivers and lakes form, which makes mapping these moving targets difficult. Building on a project that combined thousands of years
of computer time with millions of satellite images, the JRC’s Atlas of Global Surface Water Dynamics describes the important role that surface water plays for
our planet’s climate and biodiversity, as well as virtually every aspect of our daily lives.
The Atlas documents the science behind a set of truly unique maps, which include time, and illustrates the changes in surface water resources over the past 35
years.
The scientists believe that the Atlas can improve our understanding of the consequences of climate change and human action on surface water resources,
and that clearer understanding can help decision-makers to plan environmental actions and design effective policies aimed at the sustainable management of
surface water resources.
Mapping the history of water
In 2013, a small team of JRC scientists embarked on a massive project to map the history of surface water presence on Earth. Working in collaboration with
Google Earth Engine, the JRC team processed some 4 million satellite images from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) and the EU’s Copernicus programme.
In 2016, the JRC and Google Earth Engine made public the product of the partnership, the Global Surface Water Explorer (GSWE). The Global Surface Water
Explorer is an interactive online platform that maps the location, distribution and changes of the world’s surface waters over the past decades. The platform is
updated annually.
In 2019, the GSWE was adopted as a basis for the UN Environment’s assessment of the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goal’s target 6.6.1 concerning
freshwater ecosystems. Based on the online platform, the Atlas of Global Surface Water Dynamics presents the wealth of knowledge gathered by the scientific
team in an easily accessible format that is readable to everyone.
Through a series of maps, case studies and beautiful images, this Atlas brings the reader on a journey through some of the world’s most fascinating examples of
surface water changes, which highlight the beauty and fragility of the environment, and the need to preserve this precious resource.
Until the early years of this century, Razzaza was Iraq’s largest freshwater lake. Increased water abstraction from the Euphrates and Habbaniyah in recent years
(mainly for crop irrigation) means less excess water flows onwards into Razzaza, and as a consequence the lake is rapidly drying up and becoming increasingly
saline. Much of the lake has vanished since 2000. The contracting lake is losing its fish stock and diversity, along with its plant and bird life. The land degradation
around the lake affects both biodiversity and human well-being. Livelihoods from recreation, fishing and farming are all in sharp decline with only one species
of fish reported as remaining in the lake.
Once one of the world’s largest lakes, the Aral Sea used to be fed by two main rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya. By the 1960s much of the water from these
was being diverted to irrigate freshly established cotton fields. As a consequence, the Aral Sea began to contract. In the early 1980s the lake was still largely one
contiguous waterbody (albeit smaller than the original), but by the mid- to late-2000s it had been transformed into separate residual lakes, covering only 10 %
of its former area.
Page 10

LuminUltra Files Patent For The World’s First Rapid, On-Site
COVID-19 Wastewater Testing Solution
A Research Collaboration Between LuminUltra, Dalhousie University and Halifax Water Demonstrates Wastewater Data Is a Powerful Tool in Early Detection and
Tracking COVID-19 Prevalence within Communities.LuminUltra, a Canada-based biotechnology leader and portfolio company of XPV Water Partners, recently
filed a patent for the first complete, rapid, and on-site COVID-19 wastewater testing solution that will make non-invasive community health assessment far more
accessible to both the public and private sector around the world.
This innovation builds upon LuminUltra’s 20-plus years of leadership in the measurement of pathogens and microbes in wastewater systems, and is a direct
result of a research collaboration between LuminUltra, Dalhousie University and Halifax Water. Scientists from LuminUltra and Dalhousie University collaborated
to assess real-world wastewater samples provided by Halifax Water, in order to refine and improve the process needed to prepare a sample for accurate
wastewater testing. Ultimately, the innovation in the RNA extraction and concentration process resulting from the team’s research has eliminated the need for
additional complicated equipment, greatly simplifying the process from sample collection to result while increasing accuracy and consistency of results.
“The idea of wastewater surveillance testing has been advocated by researchers around the world since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Pat Whalen,
President and CEO of LuminUltra. “Until now, wastewater testing has been complicated, expensive and time consuming – meaning the potentially life-saving
technique was reserved for niche subgroups under the watchful eye of researchers. We have been determined to make this surveillance tool more accessible to
communities everywhere, allowing for a game-changing early warning of COVID-19 infections.”
The presence of the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen can be detected in human waste of infected individuals – even in asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic patients.
LuminUltra’s wastewater testing solution utilizes the rapid and portable GeneCount® qPCR device, the same industry gold-standard technology used in clinical
diagnostic testing. While other solutions around the world can take days or weeks and require specialized lab expertise to analyse a mailed-in sample, LuminUltra’s
solution examines multiple samples on-site within 90 minutes, without the need for specific testing expertise – making the testing process more efficient and
therefore available at a lower price point than other wastewater testing solutions.
“Public health leaders around the world have validated that wastewater testing is a powerful tool in the fight against the pandemic, and global research leaders
have demonstrated the benefits of testing human waste in controlled populations,” said Dr. Amina Stoddart of Dalhousie University. “Wastewater testing
has been shown to lead to early identification of the virus before it is known in a clinical context – the potential benefit could help Public Health leaders with
additional information for decisions concerning the pandemic. We are very pleased to continue Dalhousie’s long-standing research relationship with LuminUltra
to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic in Halifax and beyond.”
“Halifax Water is proud to be a partner in this important wastewater research which aligns well with our focus on public health and environmental protection.
This collaboration is an extension of our history of supporting and fostering innovative research in water and wastewater,” said General Manager Cathie O’Toole,
of Halifax Water. “Halifax and other communities are looking for monitoring solutions to reliably gather information about population health and effectively
control the spread of COVID-19.”
LuminUltra’s wastewater testing solution allows communities and controlled populations to analyze overall population health, rather than relying solely on
single-patient clinical tests to determine if there is an infection of COVID-19 present or a surge in cases. Currently, North America does not have the capacity or
resources to control the spread of COVID-19 through clinical testing alone. With 40 per cent of infected COVID-19 patients being asymptomatic, and with clinical
testing kits being in high demand with concern of a pending shortage, a smarter, broader, more holistic testing approach is needed. LuminUltra is pleased to
bring a reliable, trusted solution to communities all over the world.
COVID-19 Testing Solutions
While individual human carriers are tested for COVID-19 using clinical diagnostics, broader population-based testing is also essential to identify the presence of
SARS-CoV-2 within a community or environment. LuminUltra provides complete testing solutions for each of the three protocols: clinical diagnostics*, surface
and air testing and now, wastewater testing.
The GeneCount qPCR devices include both the portable and high-capacity options. They can be used to run both the clinical and environment tests to provide a
holistic and efficient approach to pandemic management.
Page 11

Feature Article:
Pollution, Pollution, everywhere?
At the current time in England & Wales it seems that there is pollution everywhere. We have newspaper articles claiming hundreds of thousands of discharges
for over a million hours coupled with pressure groups and various action on social media. All of this has snowballed together and has resulted in a Private
Member’s Bill being raised in the Houses of Parliament calling for
“a duty to be placed on water companies to ensure that untreated sewage is not discharged into rivers and other inland waters; and for
connected purposes.”
In more detail in the Private Member’s Bill the duty is for:
• maintaining and publishing a register of combined sewer overflows (CSOs) and any other sewer catchment assets from which discharges of
treated or untreated sewage may be made to inland waters;
• publishing biannual reports on the operational status of those assets;
• progressively installing capacity to monitor continuously all discharges of treated or untreated sewage into inland waters from those assets
and publishing the data so obtained;
• monitoring and publishing reports on the quality and duration of discharges made from CSOs;
• as part of drainage and wastewater management plans, setting out steps to ensure that—
• biological or nature-based treatments are progressively installed where practicable and made operational at wastewater
treatment works discharging to inland waters that do not otherwise provide for the tertiary treatment of effluent; and
• reliance upon CSOs is progressively reduced; and
• requiring all new surface water collection systems to incorporate sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS);
• requiring all major retrofitting or redevelopment projects of buildings where practicable to incorporate SUDS and separate surface water
and sewage collection systems
• requiring by 2025 all domestic properties to have a metered water supply when being leased, rented or sold;
• requiring the Environment Agency to maintain a register of all private sewage treatment systems;
• amending Building Regulations to require efficient processing of grey water (sullage);
• requiring all new domestic and commercial outside ground-level surfaces where practicable to be made from permeable materials; and
• introducing water efficiency labelling on household appliances.
• establishing a regulatory standard for flushable products;
• prohibiting the use of plastics in sanitary products and wet wipes;
• reducing the use of microplastics in flushable products; and
• prohibiting the disposal of fats and oils into sewers by food service establishments.
• requiring the Environment Agency to work with water companies in reducing harmful discharges from CSOs; and
• directing the Environment Agency to research the effects of CSO discharges on water quality in inland waters and water bodies.
• setting statutory targets for the increase in the number of bathing waters classified as “good” or “excellent”;
• designating a minimum of two inland bathing waters, to include one in-river inland bathing water, in each water company area for each year
of any price review period; and
• amending strategic guidance to the Authority to require it to facilitate capital expenditure on the improvement of water quality in inland
bathing waters.
This is of course an extract from the Bill that is currently being put through parliament at the current time. Most environmentalists will recognise this as wish list
of environmental drivers but practically it is a bit naive to think that, at least in the short term, that (a) most of these things are being worked on already, where
practical, and where they are not being worked upon aren’t really feasible.
The crux of the problem is….historical
There is no denying that there is a problem of pollution from the wastewater system (and yes it is a system that includes both the collection network and the
treatment works). This problem has been highlighted in the Environment Agency’s performance reports on the water companies. The highlight from the most
recent report (available on the government website) highlights that serious pollution incidents are down 90% on the 1995 baseline reducing from 522 in 1995
to 52 in 2019. There are still problems as only 16% of water bodies met good ecological status.
The problem is historical though. In the UK we operate a combined system of wastewater collection where both crude sewage and storm waters are collected
within the wastewater network and pass through the system to be treated at the wastewater treatment works. In storm conditions though the combined storm
overflow operates as a relief valve for the combined sewer network. If a CSO didn’t exist, the question is “where does the sewage go?”
The answer is it either gets to the sewage treatment works, is discharged to the environment through the CSO or it backs up within the wastewater collection
network and either floods out of a manhole or at worst case out of customer’s toilet and into their household. So looking at it this way the option is, if it can’t
get to the sewage treatment works, it either goes to the environment or into somebody’s front room.
Page 12

Historically the sewers were built by the Victorians and were a combined system. The main purpose was to divert the sewage away from urban centres to protect
people’s health. It was successful in doing that and on average it is thought that it added approximately 20 years to the average person’s life expectancy. Things
have changed and now we of course want to protect the environment too rather than passing the pollution downstream. As population numbers and climate
change is having an impact the capacity of the Victorian sewers is stretched. This brings us to the current situation
The argument comes to the point why has the investment not happened to increase the capacity and ensure that there is sufficient capacity. In truth it has, and
water companies have increased the capacity of the system to take population growth into account.
To mitigate the affects of climate change causing increase in peak flows building companies having been installing sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS)
for a number of years to balance storm flows and attempt to mitigate the risk of storm waters.
The solution to the problem is already happening
The Private Member’s Bill puts a duty onto the water industry to:
• maintain a register of CSOs and any other sewage catchment assets from which treated or untreated sewage maybe made to inland
waters
• monitoring, continuously, all discharges of treated or untreated sewage into inland waters
• Reporting on the results.
In fact, in the main this already happens. Currently within England & Wales the water companies:
• Monitor all discharges from wastewater treatment works that treat greater than 50m3/day as required under the duty imposed in an
Environmental Permit. The quality of this data is governed by the Monitoring Certification Scheme (MCERTS). This equates to monitoring
at over 3,500 Water & Sewerage Company wastewater treatment works as well as a number of wastewater treatment works that are
operated by the Ministry of Defence or industry.
• Monitor the vast majority of discharges from combined sewer overflows. This was in accordance with the Ministerial Direction that
was issued in 2013 by the then Secretary of State, Richard Benyon. This required over 13,000 CSOs to monitored by March 2020. This
programme of monitoring is designed to identify where Combined Storm Overflows are a problem.
• The programme of monitoring of CSOs identified problems at 700 of the 13,000 and investment to improve these overflows is happening
within the current Asset Management Period.
• Planned moving forward is further monitoring and improvement at wastewater treatment works where the water companies are
installing:
• 2,241 storm duration monitors on the overflows to storm management systems.
• 1,136 pass forward flow monitors on the inlet to wastewater treatment works to maximise the capacity of what is treated at the
wastewater treatment works.
• 1,104 investigations to check where final effluent flow meters can be used to monitor the flow to full treatment compliance
• 1,329 other monitoring projects to monitor what is happening within the environment
The water companies themselves are doing a lot more monitoring for a number of different reasons but all of this gives the industry a better picture of what is
happening within the wastewater system.
What this goes to show is that the Environment Agency, Water Companies and OFWAT are doing a vast amount of work already to address what is raised as a
wish list in the Private Member’s Bill that is proposed in the current government.
It is all a matter of timing
What the strategic plans go to show is that there is a medium to long term plan to resolve the issues that currently exist but it does take time to deliver them.
Everyone involved is doing what is reasonable and what most people would do. The industry as a whole:
• has put monitoring in place to gather the evidence,
• will use the data collected to find out where the problems lie
• put investment plans in place to resolve the identified issues
• deliver the investment plans to deliver environmental improvements.
The alternative is to react without proper investment and either miss the problems that are causing the pollution problems and deliver projects which may not
be necessary, in short, the quicker that solutions are delivered the more mistakes are likely to be made.
However if the pressure is ceded to then solutions can be delivered but the investment that is necessary to do this will either need government backing to fund
it or the funding will need to be sourced from customer’s bills.
Page 13

Point source pollution is not the only problem
The Private Member’s bill would have everyone believe that discharges from Combined Storm Overflows are the root cause of all of the pollution problems.
Of course, in reality this is only a part of the problem and reality shows that the situation is a lot more complex. The Sewage (Inland Waters) Bill negates the
impact on the aquatic environment from diffuse pollution. Sewage treatment works and CSOs are classed as “point sources” as the pollution comes from specific
points within the water environment. In reality the other source of pollution which enters the aquatic environment, during storm events, is pollution from land
including nutrients and solids from agricultural land too.
Even within the sewer environment the problems aren’t entirely within the water company’s control as the majority of problems are caused by sewer blockage
due to sewer misuse. There are approximately 300,000 sewer blockages each year which cost the customer around £100 million per year to unblock (Water UK,
2017). This does not include the cost to insurance companies when a property is flooded with sewage which will cost even more. The majority of this impact is
down to the use of both wet wipes and putting fat down the drain. The Water Companies, collectively, have put out public outreach campaigns to convey the
message of 3Ps where only Pee, Poo and Paper should be put into the sewage collection network. However, blockages still happen at an average rate of just
under 1000 blockages per day which in turn causes sewage to pass out of Combined Sewage Overflows.
Can Digital Transformation help?
What we can see is that the Water Industry, be it Environment Agency or Water Company, is acting on the pollution problem and having been doing so for quite
some time. What is in place right now or is planned to be in place is the measurement of the system to some respect. This will provide the situational awareness
of when the system as a whole is reaching capacity based upon the monitoring that is currently existence. In reality by measuring the outlets to the system,
through CSOs, we are really providing a full picture. In order to do this, we would need aspects of both sewer level monitoring, rainfall radar and rain gauges to
use predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to allow full control of the sewerage system. This is the basic tenants of a smart wastewater network.
Although possible there are technological problems in achieving this as there are challenges to monitoring the wastewater network at this level of resolution
that will allow that level of control.
By putting intelligence into the wastewater network, there are a large amount of benefits. These include an improvement in environmental water quality and
balancing network improvements to counteract the ever-tightening consents at the WTW. Consent conditions are reaching the point where the level of treatment
required to comply with environmental permits are intensive enough to have both a large negative impact on the air environment through increased energy
consumption and having an impact on resource issues through larger quantities of chemical consumption to treat to lower and more exacting levels. By providing
better control of the impact, there is potential for providing a greater level of pollution control for a lesser overall environmental and financial impact.
However there are technological and financial barriers to the implementation of smart wastewater networks including:
• The development of wastewater network models for the purpose of operational control rather than engineering design, which is where
most of the wastewater network models currently fit.
• Knowledge of the financial and environmental benefits of better monitoring and control in the wastewater network. There is a perceived
benefit of getting a better environmental performance overall and being able to balance this with a potential loosening of environmental
permits at the treatment works but as yet this is unproven.
• Integration and performance of meteorological artificial intelligence to feed into an operational model of a smart wastewater network.
Enabling a measure of the impact of potential of storms on the network.
• The proliferation of measurement in the wastewater network, where the barrier at the current time is both technological and financial
on the installation front, quite aside from the costs of maintenance of the instrumentation in terms of risk to operating staff and also
the cost of conducting it.
• The methodology of the integration and interaction between the wastewater collection network and the WTW is largely unproven at
the present time.
• These issues need to be resolved before smart wastewater networks can proliferate throughout the wastewater treatment system as
a whole, and there is a potential for them only to be installed on the larger, higher value networks where large populations are served,
before the technology proliferates into the smaller networks systems.
Conclusions
The Private Member’s Bill raised around pollution being discharged to inland water from the wastewater system, be it the collection network or the wastewater
treatment works, is somewhat short-sighted. It appears to be a wish list of environmental goals and idealistic in nature. However, the tenants of what is being
said is good in principle but difficult and expensive to deliver in practice and the financial mandate to enable it does not currently exist. In order to deliver this
mandate, the cost to the industry and hence the customer is extreme in the short term.
Saying this the industry is in the middle of addressing most of these issues through discovering the root cause of where the issues lie through improved
monitoring and investigation. This way the investment can be targeted reducing the overall cost of investment. The solution to the current
Page 14

Article:
Taming the anthropogenic water cycle:
A theory of the demands and requirements for
instrumentation, process automation & control
Introduction
One of the first things that taught about water when we were all in school was the hydrological cycle. This paper arguably raises the point that the Water
Industry, is an anthropogenic addition to the hydrological cycle and can be considered as a vital link within it. The human or anthropogenic addition to the
cycle is one of abstraction to treatment, from treatment through supply and to the customers tap. The customer then provides wastewater that passes into
collection, through treatment and back into the water environment.
More detail of this view point can be found in figure 1:
From this it can be theorised that there are 6 different interconnecting parts to the cycle:
• The Water Source or Environment (either via abstraction or discharge)
• Water Treatment
• Water Storage & Distribution
• The Customer
• Wastewater Collection, Storage and Raw Discharge
• Wastewater Treatment ,Sludge Treatment and disposal
Each of the different parts of the cycle require different management strategies and if these assets are to be managed effectively they must be monitored to
discover their current operating state and how improvements in the systems can be made in order to operate more effectively. This is where, from a system
based approach, instrumentation, process automation & control is necessary to allow the practioners within the anthropogenic water cycle to make an
informed decision as to how best to manage the overall system.
This paper will put forward a theorem to act as a basis of discussion as to the demands of each of these areas of the anthropogenic water cycle and then look
at an approach to the needs of monitoring, automation & control of the different areas and the need for a holistic system of data & information capture to
allow for informed decision making in the management of the anthropogenic water cycle.
Demands of the 6 parts of the anthropogenic water cycle
If the 6 parts of the anthropogenic water cycle are analysed then it can be seen that each part of the process had different impacts on the Environment,
different demands, different drivers and thus different management strategies for their optimal use and control
Figure 1: A viewpoint of the anthropogenic water cycle
Page 15

Part 1: The Water Source/Environment
This area of the water cycle is the area that receives the most impact either through abstraction of water for potable use or through the discharge of wastewater
to the environment, it is typically managed by the local Environmental Authority and is also the most difficult to monitor. Reservoir levels can be monitored, as
can the quality and flow rate of a river. These are important for two main reasons
(a) the environmental impact of the anthropogenic water cycle and
(b) the quality of the water that is used in potable water treatment
Reason (a) is measured more on a medium to long term basis but has had some disastrous impacts especially where there is a discharge to the water environment
from wastewater treatment. Reason (b), especially on a multi water treatment plant system can affect the economics of water treatment but also the impact on
the environment as a whole, I.e. where a multi-water treatment plant system exists abstraction is based upon (a) the abstraction with the least environmental
impact and
(b) with the least economic costs whilst providing sufficient treated water for supply.
Part 2: Water Treatment
This area of the water cycle is well understood and is typically managed to provide a supply of wholesome water to maintain a sufficient volume and pressure
of water in the potable water distribution system at the best overall economic value for money for both the water supply company and for the end consumer,
the customer.
The product from this part of the cycle is two fold. The first being water for human consumption and the key performance indicators are compliance with the
legislative conditions in the particular country and the cost of the water produced. The second product is the waste products from the process, I.e. potable water
sludge.
The main costs associated with this part of the cycle are dependent upon the quality of the water and normally are the consumables used in producing potable
water, chemicals, power, and maintenance of the treatment plant assets.
Part 3: Water Storage & Distribution
The storage and distribution of potable water is simple in theory but due to the large infrastructure is complex in practise. Theoretically it is the storage of
water to ensure there is sufficient potable water in the distribution system to supply to the customer at best possible efficiency. The size of any system and the
networks of storage reservoirs, pumping stations and different demands of the customer make this part of the cycle a difficult task to manage that involves an
in depth knowledge of how much water is in the distribution system at anyone time and how much is required to provide the customer sufficient water whilst
maintaining pressures at a low enough level to minimise the leakage of water from the system.
The main costs associated with this part of the cycle is in the movement of potable water from the treatment works to the customer, generally through a
network of pipework and pumping stations. The main losses from the system are (a) supply to the customer (a planned and economically recovered) and leakage
from the system (an unplanned and economically un-covered loss)
Part 4: The Customer
The customer is the why the anthropogenic water cycle exists in the first place. The demands of this part of the system is for the supply of potable water to
the customer for consumption purposes and the conveyance of wastewater away from the customers property to elsewhere for treatment and disposal to the
environment in such a way as to minimise the environmental impact all whilst providing the best possible value.
Part 5: Wastewater Collection, Storage & Raw Water discharge
Once wastewater has left a customers property it needs to be conveyed to a place of treatment as efficiently as possible whilst minimising losses from the system
all whilst providing the best possible value. As per water distribution the theory behind this part of the cycle is simple, I.e. get wastewater to a treatment works
without losses from the system as efficiently as possible. In practice it is equally as difficult insofar as there is a complex network of pipework and distribution
systems as well as safety valves in the form of CSOs which are necessary to provide a relief from the system in times of high flow in areas that will minimise the
impact to the customer and also ideally to the environment.
The main costs and risks associated with wastewater collection is the storage od wastewater within the system developing septic conditions and causing damage
to the system, the cost of pumping of wastewater, the potential of loss of wastewater from the system through a CSO and the addition of water into the system
from infiltration increasing the costs of pumping and having a downstream impact on wastewater treatment.
Page 16

Part 6: Wastewater Treatment, Sludge Treatment & disposal
The wastewater treatment stage of the anthropogenic water cycle sees the water return to the environment although not necessarily in its entirety (wastewater
re-use) and not necessarily to the same water course that the water came from originally. The demands of this part of the process are to purify the water to a
state where its environmental impact is minimised all for the best value to the customer.
From this part of the process there are also a number of different potential products that are produced or have the potential to be produced of which these
must also be disposed of at minimal or beneficial impact to the environmental. These include wastewater sludge, biogas from sludge digestion, nutrients from
sludge liquors and recycled wastewater to industrial or agricultural customers for re-use as well as screenings and grit
There a number of complexities to the system including variable inputs at differing times of day due to the nature of the customer and the variability of operating
a biological process as well as the nature of the varied inputs causing damage to the process (mainly grit).
The main costs associated with this part of the cycle are operation & maintenance of the system and power from maintaining the process in order to treat the
product (I.e. wastewater) to a level where it has no deleterious impact to the environment.
Measuring the anthropogenic water cycle
In order to measure any system the demands of that system need to be understood, this has been done, at least in part. The next step to be taken is to
understand what data and information are needed in order to measure the demands. From this the instrumentation, process automation & control systems
that are required can be defined.
Figure 2 looks at the data & information systems that the different elements of the water cycle should potentially include excluding the water environment
which has been theorised as the first part of the cycle. There are bound to be areas in which it could argued that a certain set of data is and isn’t needed but
this is the author’s take on what is required and is subject to discussion. What is undoubtedly required is an over-arching data/information management and
control system to take all of the individual data points that is received by the system and convert it into information that will allow informed decisions to be made
through an event detection system or similar other management model.
It can be seen from figure 2 that there are common themes
across the different areas of the Water Industry be this in
the treatment of potable or wastewater or their respective
distribution and collection.
In the treatment side of the industry there is a need to measure
the environmental impact of either consumption (of water
resource) or production (of wastewater to the environment),
there is a need to monitor the production of “clean” water
in both types of treatment, there is also a need to monitor
the cost of “production”. It can be seen that for potable and
wastewater treatment there are common treatment systems
needed. These in figure 2 are:
A production management system which effectively monitors
the quality, cost and volume of product that is required to be
treated. This is fed on the potable water side by a demand
management system to meet the customers needs for potable
water as measured by the volume of stored water in the
distribution system and the relative age, the goal to store just
enough water to meet demand by the public and keep the
water age within the system to a minimum in order to keep the
water quality deterioration in the network to a minimum. This
also applies to the wastewater treatment system where the
goal is to balance the flow and load within the system so that the treatment works receive a consistent feed whilst also minimising any spills to the environment
caused in inclement weather as fed by the wastewater network capacity management system.
The production management system is also responsible for the quality of the product meeting quality standards and having little or no environmental impact. This
is measured by three system in both the potable and wastewater treatment areas, namely an Energy Management System, Environmental Impact Management
System and a Cost Management System.
ThesethreesystemsinafuturemodelofthewaterindustrywouldneedtoworkwithinconjunctionwiththeproductionsystemtobalancetheEnergyconsumption
(and on wastewater sites) production versus the Environmental Impact and of course the cost of treatment. In potable water treatment part of this is already
Figure 2: Example of data & information requirements for the anthropogenic water cycle
Page 17

done. With potable water treatment works with multiple sources or systems with multiple treatment works the cost of the raw water treatment is measured
and the best overall solution on a cost basis is selected and used. The “trim” on this current practice in the future would be to measure the sustainability of that
option. Is the cheapest option always the one that makes the best environmental sense? Let me explain, if you have a water treatment system with 6 treatment
works and 10 different sources, taking into account the cost of pumping and the resource available which is the most cost effective source in terms of the water
production and the environment taking into account resource of water and the energy consumed in transferring water from one area to another.
This is a little bit different in the wastewater treatment side of the business as there is rarely a choice. Where there is some potential for cost savings is to ensure
that there is volume and load balancing within the system taking into account all of the external inputs (raw sewage) and internal inputs (generated flows within
the treatment system). This would need to be managed by a capacity management system within the wastewater network and in an ideal world a measurement
of (a) sewage age within the network and (b) load measurement with the ideal system ensuring there is a balance between age of the sewage (effecting its
strength and potential septicity versus the volume versus a smoothing of the load for the treatment works.
In the potable and wastewater networks side of the water industry the key factors specific to these areas are demand & capacity measurement. Already within
the water industry a number of water companies already monitor the demand of the water and the times of the day to limit the amount of pumping that has
to be done within peak electricity tariff periods. Keeping the volume in the system as low as possible whilst ensuring there is a sufficient quantity of stored
water of course minimises the pressure within the system and the potential for water leakage. Add to this a leakage management system as part of the demand
measurement and tie this into customer water meters to measure the demand then the volume required to maintain the system, although very complex, is
easily manageable.
At the customer end with the advent of smart metering this should be able to be used along with predicated modelling the advent of consumption and production
management system feeding back to the potable water treatment works to manage the production necessary and forward to the wastewater treatment works
the capacity for treatment required.
All of these systems are based upon getting the right amount of “fluid” be it potable water or drinking water to the right place at the right time. The Key
Performance Indicators of the right time being sufficient to satisfy the customers demands at the least possible cost whilst causing the least environmental
impact.
Additionally there are other systems that are also common to all elements of a potential future model apart from the customer. These systems are about keeping
the “nuts and bolts” of the water cycle running in a safe manner and at best possible cost. For the sake of this paper these systems are based around Asset
Management, Cost and Security.
The asset management system is simple and the elements to create and run this system are often already in place within the water industry but simply the data
is not used to its full potential.
Firstly as part of this system is a complete list of assets, this seems very basic but overall is not done very well. If you ask the question of a “water company” do
you know all of your assets then the answer is generally “of course we do” but if the asset database is queried key data is often missing be it model numbers,
manufacturers or in terms of civil structures, dimensions, volumes, surface areas or in a number of cases when it was installed into the treatment works. This of
course is the very basic requirement for an asset management system. Once installed, on the treatment plant, and up and running there are numerous things
that can ensure than asset is correctly maintained.
The first part of this is the humble run counter, electronic and contained in a PLC nowadays and producing data when an asset is energised but tended to be
hidden away and not often used. Assets tend to be maintained on the basis of monthly, quarterly or annual task frequency that ignores the fact that an asset
may or may not have run for the requisite maintenance hours or not. Within a basic asset management system the run counter can be used to highlight up when
an asset has run its requisite amount of time. To take a blower as an example that require an oil change for every 2,000 hours that it runs. The current schedule
has an oil change for the blower every 3 months. If that blower is a duty only blower it is likely to have run for 2,880 hours before its oil is changed. However if
the blower is part of a much larger aeration supplier system, lets say a system with a duty blower, three assists and two standbys then the potential is for that
blower to have run for anywhere between 480 hours and 1920 hours (on the assumption that it wasn’t needed as a standby blower).
With a run counter based system then you have an asset being serviced when it is required not just on a time basis with the counter triggering an “event” which
is the trigger for the operative to visit site to maintain the assets.
The next layer of complexity is to look at condition based monitoring as part of an asset management system. This is more ably described by practitioners in the
industry so I won’t describe it fully here but in short it used the instruments and switches that are part of an asset to assess the condition. Deviation from set
parameters will highlight a problem with the asset and raise an “event” that will trigger the visit an engineer. For high value assets (such as large pumps, blowers,
centrifuges) it is an investment worth considering but generally not used within the water industry due to the sheer number of assets. It is slightly different on
the instrumentation side where models can show what the expected concentration or flow is and using algorithms show the “expected” concentrations that the
instrument should be recording but it works in a similar basis of deviation from normality.
The Asset Management system would take all of this whether the simple run counter is used or more complex systems are used and ensure that the need for
maintenance of particular items is required this of course would need human input in order to schedule the tasks to ensure maximum efficiency in deploying
the engineers to site
All of the different systems so far in a potential overall system would need to feed into a cost management system, part of this system would need to monitor
the consumables on site, namely power and closely monitoring its consumption informing the other systems (in terms of potable water) what is the cheapest
option and in
terms of chemicals ensuring that they are kept in levels that are sufficient to maintain the system but also monitoring their consumption. In the same fashion as
asset management then deviation from normality should trigger an event whether this be little or no consumption indicating an asset problem (a broken dosing
pump) or excessive consumption indicating a critical event (a burst or unexpected release).
Page 18

The cost management system feeds into all of the other systems. For example in water treatment it is a factor of the raw water source that is chosen for
treatment, in water networks choosing when to pump and top up supplies depending upon the electricity tariff, in wastewater networks working with levels
and sewage age to balance what is received at the treatment works and when in order to balance out the tariff periods and also to ensure a consistent supply
of wastewater for the process.
The final system is the security management system meaning physical security in terms of people safety and assets. Within the water industry at the minute
this is quite mature in terms of movement switches on hatches, pass cards for personnel on sites and for sites that require it increasing levels of sophistication
in terms of movement based CCTV, and other anti-intrusion security systems. This of course leads to an event based system in the water company centralised
control.
Discussion
This paper has looked at a potential vision of controlling the human input into the water cycle. The human race extract water from the environment, treat it,
utilise it, treat it again and put that water back in a modified form. This, like any other human activity, is a process and can be thought of as a single process
with multiple parts to it. Like anything in order to manage the process it needs to be monitored. The problem within the water industry is that monitoring
and management of the data that it produces is too large in order to manage and the industry is swamped by a tidal wave of data with arguable not a lot of
information.
So what needs to be done to change this state of affairs, is the problem technological, is the problem organisational, is the problem financial. As in all things a
little bit of everything.
In terms of the technological state of play there are developments that need to happen in order to develop this vision but also a lot of the systems described in
this paper already exist. What I have termed a DIMS system (Data & Information Management System) are being developed by water companies at this minute
and integrated into their systems. EDS or Event Detection Systems form the basis of many a commercial solution for the water industry at the moment as does
Condition Based Monitoring for asset management. Run counters have existed as physical parts of machinery for decades and the more modern equivalent
situated PLC is just a development of this. The step further that needs to be taken is simply to use that data and tie it into the Event Detection System. Generally
a step that has not been taken but actually one that when a site is being designed and constructed comes at very little cost.
In terms of the systems that are available to manage the overall water industry the technology already exists. In terms of the system technology to manage
the individual parts of the anthropogenic water cycle the systems exist in some areas and are waiting in the wings for other areas, this is especially true for the
wastewater side of the business
So what areas do need to develop technologically, instrumentation is always going to be one area. There are parameters within the wastewater industry
that cannot be measured at the current time, I am sure on the potable side of the business that this is also true. There are areas within both the potable and
wastewater distribution networks that are missed by the current instrumentation available mainly through lack of demand and their not being a driver to
develop such instrumentation. That driver has to come from legislation or potential cost efficiencies that can be made.
In discussing the various organisational problems the whole system needs to be examined. This paper has provided a holistic view of the system including
the wider environment and this (in Europe and the USA) at least falls under the responsibility of various different and very large organisations. This creates a
difficulty in coordinating the activities between various organisations.
To take the level down from this and to look at the water companies themselves the different systems within the companies in terms of data and information
management have had to develop quite rapidly as technology has developed. As the systems that are required are very large then it has been a struggle for
the industry to keep up with changes and thus systems tend to become outdated very quickly. This realisation has come and certainly in the UK new systems
are being installed and replacement programmes put in
but there is the fear that the scenario may become like the
bridge over the “Forth of Firth”, a never ending task that
constantly requires investment and new development to
maintain the system. Something that would not promote
stability in the way things operate.
The last problem is always that of finance. When you
consider the size of the water industry and the way that
it is financially maintained there will always be a struggle
to change the way things are done and implemented due
to the financial cost of that decision and to install an over-
arching system as described in this paper is expensive. So
how does everything get paid for, mostly from savings that
can be made from efficiencies in the process but also the
realisation that water is undervalued as a resource.
There are savings to be made and it seems that the phrase
that is flavour of the month at the moment is the one that
wasadaptedfromGalileo.Theoriginalphrasewas“Wemust
measurewhatcanbemeasured,andmakemeasurablewhat
cannot be measured” has adapted to “You can’t manage
what you can’t measure.” this can further be refined for
the water industry to include the understanding of what
you have measured, figure 3 shows a typical diagram the
movement from data to information to knowledge or inFigure 3: The Relationship between Data, Information, Knowledge & Wisdom
Page 19

the case of managing a process based industry the ability to make an informed decision. This is a concept that has been borrowed from the Knowledge
Management Professionals among us and requires steps to be taken in order for data to be converted into information and then a further steps to be taken in
order to convert the information into knowledge/wisdom. In the case of the water industry the overall system produces incredible amounts of different data.
With an over-arching DIMS system this can then be converted into information displayed in such a way that the operational staff can use this information to
provide knowledge and this allows efficiencies in the way the processes are managed.
It is through these operational efficiencies, which will become more and more important as the industry has to move even more into a production mindset, that
financial resources can be released in order to drive the industry forwards. Add to that potential additional opportunities for managing the water environment
as a whole then the systems as proposed in this paper can become more of a reality.
Tideway’s TBM Ursula passes beneath Tower Bridge
This week a giant tunnel has been dug under the final bridge in London before
completion of the 25km super sewer for the capital.
Tideway, the company constructing the tunnel, has been using huge tunnel boring
machines (TBMs) since 2018, with a number of sections of the tunnel already having
their first stage complete. Once the outer shell is in place, the team then line its
concrete segments with an inner layer of concrete , in a process called ‘secondary
lining’.
Passing underneath Tower Bridge on Monday marked the last passage under the 21st
bridge over the Thames as it works from west to east, with 19 kilometres of tunnel
now constructed.
The 25km ‘super sewer’, which will clean up the tens of millions of tonnes of sewage
that currently pollute the River Thames, has had its outer tunnel shell built underneath
west and central London and will soon start its final phase of digging in the east.
Roger Bailey, Tideway’s Chief Technical Officer, said:
“Getting these giant machines to work away under the river has taken a huge amount
of engineering expertise and successfully passing under the last bridge in central
London marks an important milestone for the project.
“Most people have no idea that this massive tunnel is being built right in the centre of
London, underneath one of the world’s most iconic cities, and the last bridge to pass
under is perhaps the most famous.
“Our engineering and construction teams, working closely with the bridge’s owner,
the City of London Corporation, have done a superb job – and we’re now closer than
ever to a cleaner River Thames.”
TBM Ursula May 2018 before launch
In line with tradition in the tunnelling world, Tideway has named all of its machines
after empowering women from London’s history. Ursula, the giant TBM named after
the British cryobiologist Dr Audrey ‘Ursula’ Smith, passed under Tower Bridge this
week.
The TBM will finish the journey at the Chambers Wharf site in Bermondsey, marking
7.6 kilometres of tunnelling from where it picked up the job in Battersea, using 4,227
concrete segments to form the tunnel.
Two other machines have already completed the first stage of tunnelling from
Battersea to Acton, and the most easterly section from Bermondsey to Stratford will
start soon.
The central section of the project, between Fulham and Bermondsey, is being jointly
delivered by contractors Ferrovial and Laing O’Rourke.
The project is due for completion in 2025 and so far, has created more than 4,000 jobs
from across its 24 construction sites.
Page 20

Article:
A Review of
Smart Wastewater Networks
Introduction
Last month we discussed the potable water network and the current state of the art, the Wastewater side of the business is certainly less developed but the benefits
of having a Smart or Intelligent Network has alot more benefits. Because of this “lack” of development it is quite difficult to understand what the actual benefits of
the Intelligent Network actually is. It is something that I have said in other articles within WIPAC Monthly but I will say it again here.
The fundamental basis of any Intelligent Network has to be
“To have the ability to control what is needed to be controlled on an automatic basis and where it cannot be controlled to have sufficient
information about the network to enable for it to be managed.”
Ok.....good words but what does it actually mean? The best way to describe this is in the form of a scenario:
In dry weather a wastewater collection network flows along as normal, there are typical diurnal profiles with flows (and loads) being received at the wastewater
treatment works in peaks and troughs to the extent that on pumped networks flow can be little or nothing during the night-time. The network is in dry conditions
but where pipes are cracked and they pass through wet environments there can be significant amount of infiltration. However because of the size of the networks
the spots of infiltration are not known or difficult to find. Flows being low then there is the risk of accumulation of debris within the network and accumulation of
fats, oils and greases that dry and resemble something hard and unmoveable. In rare exceptions because of faults within the system there are discharges to the en-
vironment even in dry weather.
In wet weather the situation changes, the network fills up and if the rain storm is bad enough the sewer reaches capacity. This causes the relief valves in the system
to operate (storm overflows) and where there is a blockage in the system the customer is at risk of the network backing up into their living room. At the treatment
works all of the debris that was left in the sewer in dry weather is flushed into the system causing an undue burden on the screens and potentially causing them to
block (worst case). Storm tanks come into operation because the treatment works cannot cope with the sudden increase in hydraulic flows. If the rain storm is severe
enough then the storm tanks reach capacity and overflow to the environment. In wet weather all hands tend to go to the pumps with the numbers of alarms increas-
ing rapidly and there is a severe burden on the company in terms of personnel
For the Water Industry at least this is business as usual. Now what is the potential for change a revised scenario with an intelligent network.
In dry weather an intelligent control system has mapped the approximate flow of water into a treatment works each day from the network and uses the capacity of
the network to balance the amount of flows that is received at the treatment works at all times of day. This takes into account the flows that are received by gravity
sewers which are treated as base flow and smooths out the reeving profile. At period of the day the amount of sewage is held back and used to flush the sewer for
short periods of time ensuring that it is kept as clean as possible this also allows for the retention time within the sewer to be kept at a reasonable level. As the flow
is measured at key points within the sewer the inputs can be measured and compared to the population served highlighting hot-spot areas where flow is higher than
expected in an attempt to map infiltration. This triggers an infiltration detection scheme to ultrasonically map the sewer condition in order to highlight areas for CCTV
inspection. Levels within the sewer are also monitored and the levels that will discharge overflows known. Where there is a risk of a storm overflow from discharging
this highlighted and recorded. The level sensors in the sewer are used to predict where blockages are developing and raises, tries to flush it using an automated flush
sequence and if unsuccessful raises an alert to a sewer jetting team.
Within the dry network an alert is raised from the weather radar and this triggers an artificial neural network model to predict the amount of rainfall that will be
received and compare this to the capacity that is present measured by level measurement of the sewer. If the capacity is sufficient then nothing happens, if there is
insufficient capacity the network passes forward sufficient flow to the treatment works to the point where if needed it virtually empties the sewer. The rain storm
hits and the levels within the sewer are monitored. As the level increases this is monitored and any spill levels through storm overflows are noted, timed and record-
ed. The levels in the sewer are also monitored and in conjunction with the weather radar and rain gauges within the network predict if any customers are at risk of
the sewers flooding properties. Any properties that are at risk are hot-spotted within the control room of the company with a time to spill and the nearest available
company resource to deal with it.
Drivers & benefits of an intelligent wastewater network
At the moment within the wastewater industry there are a number of drivers for an Intelligent Network including
• In wet weather, either overflow from storm overflows or in worst case floods a customer’s house. In the UK this equates to many thousand houses per year na-
tionally
• Infiltration into the wastewater network causes an undue pressure on the water treatment works. Where a treatment works is treating the infiltration and the
volumetric consent has to be increased the quality consent is decreased. This can increase the treatment stages within the treatment works causing an increase
in capital spend and operating cost. It can also cause premature spillage to storm tanks that trigger the need for further investment at the treatment work. This
is predicted to cost the UK water industry almost a £1 billion over the next ten years.
• In the UK the Water & Sewage Companies have been told to install event detection monitoring on a risk based-approach at all discharges to the environment
to understand what overflows are activating and when.
• Studies in both the UK and Mainland Europe have shown that if a holistic approach to wastewater management is taken then not only can better environmental
quality standards be achieved but at a lower cost to the water & sewage company and thus lower cost to the customer to.
• Design of wastewater treatment works includes a peaking factor meaning that a number of assets within the treatment works need to be over-sized to cope with
increased flows and loads. An example of this is aeration blowers which are often sized to 140% of the average load of the treatment works. The turn-down ratio
Page 21

WIPAC Monthly - October 2020

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