WRc attendance and celebration at CIWEM Urban Drainage Group conference
Published on: 22 Nov 2024
Read moreDay 2: What is the problem we are trying to fix…with AI?
Day 2 of the River Deep Mountain AI sprint was kicked into a high gear (speed being the essence of this sprint) with a visit from Steve Cram CBE, retired British athlete and Olympian. Steve talked about the connection between the data analysis used to support elite athletes’ performance and AI.
The sprint quickly moved on to explore the challenges of water catchments in relation to the technologies available and needed. RDMAI is looking for a blend of AI and ML to produce better decisions to improve water health. It is a huge driver for continuous improvement.
Today was a day of questions and deep, collaborative thinking. The tent hummed with brainwaves working hard to find the questions that need to be asked about AI, and answer some of the big picture topics, including:
- What’s possible and what’s needed?
- Why do we want to use AI?
- What are the most compelling use cases for AI?
With the RDMAI’s funding over the next 18 months, the goal is to dig deep into the collective knowledge gathered within the tent (with the beating rain reminding us all about water!) and understand catchments - fast!
Ceri Gibson from Tyne Rivers Trust briefly joined the sprint and posed several delving and pertinent questions for the audience, noting that the Newcastle Racecourse (home of the Festival) is within the Tyne River catchment area, which focused minds on a real-life situation:
- How can the Tyne River Trust generate data more rapidly and use it successfully for AI?
- What does AI want from them so that they can effect change?
- How much does AI effect their carbon footprint?
- How can we use ‘Citizen Science’ to affect the data. Can AI help with that?
As this was a day of questions, because questions are what lead to great answers and solutions, they continued at pace:
- What is a healthy water body?
- What is the potential of using AI to answer that question?
- What are the key pressures at catchment level that can be addressed by AI?
By the end of Day 2, the six groups of experts within the sprint had honed their thoughts and insights down ready to tackle Day 3 ‘Solving the problem with AI’.
Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what time there is. From ‘The Old Man of the Sea’, by Ernest Hemingway.
Day 3: Digging deeper into the ideas
The six projects that have developed over the last two days are taking shape, with each team deciding on which “How to” to take forward to form their final opportunity area. Each group presented their opportunity, which clearly showed the groups were tackling similar problems but viewing them from different angles.
A great example from one team is, “How might we help stakeholders (farmers, WASCs, regulators and citizens) better understand the impact of changes in land use on water quality using AI, specifically related to phosphorous?”.
The afternoon session was focused on interrogating the ideas and pushing them out further. To inspire even deeper thinking, the sprint was visited by two speakers: Dr Gennadi Donchyts from Google Earth Engine, who spoke about applications of remote sensing in water monitoring, and John Bagnall, Principle Environmental Scientist at Wessex Water who presented about the use of AI for bacterial quality estimation in Wessex Water’s bathing areas, and specifically the development of their water quality/safety app for Warleigh Weir.
Sprinters then worked their minds hard to complete a ‘Concept definition’, with the tent fairly humming with the sound of ideas and concepts gradually making their way to paper ready to present an elevator pitch of their concept to the group at the end of the session.
Tomorrow, Day 4 - the last day, is refine and pitch day. Will the teams be ready?