MANAGING DATA FLOW Could Big Data make the huge improvements needed in water efficiency?
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adical ideas are needed to reduce the amount of water being lost. According to the Consumer Council for Water, 3.1 billion litres of water are lost every day in the UK from leakage. What can be done to stop this? Water firms have begun to explore how Big Data can be used to tackle the problem. The concept is simple, even if the work to do it isn’t. It’s telemetry on a massive scale: bringing together lots of information about water use or loss from multiple sources. Add in the factors that influence the rate of losses and you
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have a dashboard that helps decide the inputs you make. But it requires a lot of computing power to get there and complex analysis to get it right. UK Water, the body which coordinates work between the UK suppliers, has started a focus group specialising in data and analytics as part of the British Water Technical Forum. The two areas of focus for the industry are network management and sustainable water management. Technical Director Marta Perez says: “At its first meeting, members of Data &
Analytics Focus Group vowed to work towards a code of practice to advise UK utilities and their supply chain. The data and analytics experts also propose to compile a glossary of technical terms to streamline the way language is used across the industry.” They are latecomers to the idea: the Smart Water Networks Forum (SWAN) has already been sharing best practice from utility firms in America, Asia and Europe for more than three years. Organisations working with the utility firms have already been using the
www.ciphe.org.uk
