Introducing the Carbon Initiative with IWA Water Loss Specialist Group
Published on: 12 Feb 2025
Read moreThis #TechnicalTuesday, Claudia Bakeev wonders: how can data science help solve the water crisis?
The ever-increasing demand for clean water combined with reducing resources aggravated by climate change continuously imposes new challenges to the water industry. Ofwat’s Price Review 2024 (PR24) has highlighted the need to manage water demand and the environment, while improving services for an increasing customer base.
Current technologies allow for the collection of vast amounts of data every day, ranging from water quality to consumption, from leakage to customer satisfaction, and everything in between. However, the data collected are often of poor quality or not well understood.
Data science is a discipline that can be used to extract meaningful information from large, difficult to interpret data. It uses mathematics, statistics, programming and machine learning to generate solutions ranging from simple analytics to artificial intelligence. It is an expanding field that has been adopted across different industry and business types.
The adoption of data-driven solutions in the water industry is still lagging behind other sectors, and water companies need to invest in data-based innovation to help them comply with the requirements set for AMP8. Possible uses of data science include (but are not limited to):
Although the work to resolve the many issues around clean water supply involves a number of disciplines and organisations, data science has an essential role by providing invaluable insights that can inform the decision-making process that will hopefully lead to a more sustainable future.