Non-revenue water success relies on operational resiliency

To make matters worse, combining impactful weather events and aging water infrastructure specifically means more system failures, exposing communities to environmental risks and service disruptions. Certain geographic areas must be prepared to handle more intense conditions and ensure their infrastructure meets the demand, especially as drought-prone areas grapple with arid soil and short but intense rainfall.

When aging infrastructure is coupled with the changing climate results in non-revenue water, there is an enormous cost incurred to water utilities, as well as a possible impact on the quality of the water itself. Non-revenue water was one of the topics addressed at this year’s Conference of the Parties (COP27). It is shocking to see how much water is simply lost in water networks, even in developed nations. In the United States, it is estimated that approximately 17 percent of utilities lose water to leaks each year. The global volume of non-revenue water has been estimated to be 346 million cubic metres per day, amounting to 30 percent of water system input volumes across the world according to COP27. Non-revenue water not only impacts the economic performance of water supply companies, it also increases pressure on natural water resources as more water is produced and processed than is needed.

GHD recently developed Aquanomics, an economic model that estimates the future impact of water risk from storms, floods and droughts in ten geographies. The results are monumental, with an estimated GDP loss of USD5.6 trillion by 2050 from water risk. While storms and floods have the biggest impact, drought is the third-leading factor. Perhaps even more concerning is the social impact of water-related disasters. In 2021 alone, 100 million people globally were affected by storms, floods and droughts. Who is impacted and how much varies, with a combination of factors including the state of an area’s infrastructure and local prevention systems.

Operational resilience is a water utility’s capacity to anticipate and react to change not only to survive, but to evolve. It is important today because the business environment in the water industry is becoming more dynamic and unpredictable. This is a result of several enduring forces disrupting business systems – from accelerated technological evolution to a greater interconnectedness of the global economy to broader issues, such as rising inequality and climate change.

In addition, operational resilience compliments efforts related to Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) which includes committing to decarbonising a utility’s footprint and to explore ways to power operations with carbon pollution-free energy sources. This commitment is critical to combating the changing client, and it’s crucial that utilities pursue this path in a way that advances equity and environmental justice. For generations, the harmful impacts of toxic pollution and climate change have been disproportionately felt by low-income communities and communities of colour. Today, utilities are working to change that by ensuring investments in infrastructure that doesn’t leave disadvantaged and historically marginalised communities behind.

Having an effective operational resilience plan and framework, along with connecting efforts to ESG and environmental justice, means a utility has the processes in place to identify physical, economic, cyber and other risks. By putting in controls to reduce those risks, and where these fail to eliminate risk, organisations have the flexibility and processes in place to adapt to any change in conditions. This will ensure normal business operations can continue and suffer minimum or no impact.

Utilities that want to build resilience first need to establish full visibility across the supply chain, systems and networks. Such visibility enables robust end-to-end planning and management, and makes it easier to rapidly assess the impacts of potential disruptions. When municipalities understand the conditions of their systems, they can optimise their assets by predicting, and preventing or mitigating, system issues. For example, GHD Digital’s approach leverages machine learning to detect hidden patterns in data and accurately predicts the likelihood of failure for a pipe within a distribution network. Resulting in increased accuracy and better maintenance decisions, thus reducing non-revenue water in the system as well as avoiding catastrophic breaks.

Operational resilience requires utilities to adapt to these challenging times. The introduction of digital tools not only helps system operators fully see their physical networks, but also makes real-time decisions faster.

Historically, building new infrastructure was a common solution to overcapacity issues. Today, digitally optimising the infrastructure we have is the better solution. Our mindset has changed from traditional bricks and mortar solutions to leveraging operational options that digital solutions offer. Advanced analytics (AA) and predictive modeling can help us understand the day-to-day processes and predicts when problems will reoccur. For example, predicting when a pipe burst may occur, or optimising maintenance at a water treatment plant which includes cleaning schedules for membrane processes.

GHD Digital’s Membrane Analytics is a data-driven solution for membrane water treatment. While treatment is a complex operation, without digital tools, their maintenance relies heavily on knowledge continuity. This is becoming more challenging in today’s economy as qualified and experienced operators retire and there is a lack of skilled personnel to replace them. Often, the membrane’s life could decrease as much as 40 percent because of improper cleaning schedules or methods. Membrane Analytics is useful for experienced and inexperienced operators, assisting in critical operational decisions by providing consistent, near real-time data to inform maintenance decisions.

AA through innovative digital tools like these can greatly improve operational efficiency and lower overall costs not only by collecting data for system-wide insights, but also making sense of that data to better augment decision making.

Water systems today are facing immense challenges. Digital tools offer an opportunity to empower utilities to predict system issues with greater accuracy and speed, and to set a new standard for risk assessment planning and response. With data-driven decision making, operations can be streamlined reducing costs and downtime, allowing municipalities to better serve their citizens.

These digital solutions will assist full end-to-end visibility, allowing utilities to gain insight into their operations – to understand “what is happening”, “what is going to happen”, and “if something does happen – what to do” across the various tiers. Key performance indicators (KPIs) and other operational metrics will help identify potential points of vulnerabilities. These metrics will also help quantify how likely a potential exposure is and how long mitigation will take. Organisations should also run scenarios to gauge the impacts of different kinds of disruptions. This practice is critical especially for the intent to ensure a success with non-revenue water programs.

When water scarcity is an issue, non-revenue water becomes more than a financial loss to the system. Judicious water use must begin with conserving as much water as possible in the system. Tighter budgets also mean we can no longer accept and absorb the costs of non-revenue water. Instead, our systems need to be smarter and more efficient, enabling us to anticipate when problems occur and have solutions in place to minimise service disruptions and costs. More importantly, we need to have a plan to prevent the problems in the future through operational resilience.

We recently surveyed senior executives from around the world and found that innovation has globally accelerated after the disruptions of recent years. The Innovation Imperative report explores ways businesses of all sectors are innovating with digital tools and processes. Learn how your organisation can be more agile and alert to managing disruption and identify opportunities to create new value.