Can big data close the water infrastructure financing gap?

Inefficiencies are flooding the global water infrastructure. Nearly 20% of water is lost in developed countries through leaks, theft or mismanagement. This percentage, also known as non-water revenues, can rise to 40-50% in developing countries. Overall, this represents nearly $14bn per year globally in lost revenues according to the World Bank. In a context of increasing water demand (+55% by 2050) and growing population (9.6bn by 2050), finding ways to reduce these losses and increase efficiencies in the system is growing evermore crucial. Developments on the hardware and software sides are offering new possibilities.

At the hardware level, technology can now track flows much more precisely. Ultrasound meters, for example, measure flows without using mechanical parts, thus reducing maintenance costs. They also detect smaller variations in flows and, therefore, smaller leaks. Using information and communication technologies, smart meters can communicate with each other to optimise water flows and signal when maintenance is needed. This can be particularly useful in remote rural areas of developing countries where residents often depend on a single water pump.

On the software side, reductions in the cost of computing (notably via the cloud) have allowed utilities to make sense of an ever-increasing amount of data. This is creating a new market for service providers like TaKaDu, an Israeli start-up that leverages big-data analytics to optimise systems and track anomalies in water usage. In the most basic applications, the data used for the analysis comes from the water infrastructure itself. This data can also be combined with information from outside the system. A public-private partnership entered into by the Dutch Ministry of Water uses information from diverse sources (e.g. levee pressure, water level and weather data) to improve disaster planning and risk management of floods, for example.

The predictive ability provided by data analytics also offers opportunities to optimise water consumption in the agricultural sector, which alone accounts for 70% of total global water withdrawals. Solar-powered monitors can now track and transmit information about local weather conditions (actual and forecast), soil moisture levels and crop types via the Internet. This allows farmers in developed countries—or those in developing countries who own and control their water supply—to budget, optimise and control their water use remotely.

Better monitoring could also help utilities more easily recoup their costs. On the “carrot” side, sharing information about quality and consumption in a more effective and transparent manner with customers helps build trust about the reliability of the service, thereby increasing customers’ willingness to pay. On the “stick” side, meters that can be shut down in case of non-payment and instantly reactivated once payment is received have been shown to help increase collection rates in urban areas.

The role of big data in water management will also benefit from developments of big data in other sectors.  Where people pay for water using their mobile phones, the data about water payments could be used to infer the status of a particular water point – an absence of payments over a long period could indicate a problem with the pump, for example. These synergies, which will increase as the use of remote sensing and big data analytics spreads, point to some of the changes the Industrial Internet could bring about.

The big data revolution will not close the global infrastructure financing gap; estimated at $1trn a year, the latter is simply too large. But the gains in efficiencies and increased understanding of the system it provides could help reduce it.

This post first appeared on GE LookAhead. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

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Author: Dr Elie Chachoua is a contributing writer for GE LookAhead.

Image: Tap water flows out of a faucet in New York June 14, 2009. WATER-BEVERAGES/ REUTERS/Eric Thayer.