Water Network Leak Detection

Situation: Clean drinking water is a critical but increasingly-scarce resource. But U.S. water distribution networks lose an average of 20% to 30% of the water transmitted through them, often due to leaks that go undetected. This results in lost revenue for water utilities, creates unnecessarily high maintenance costs as crews search for needles in haystacks, and is environmentally unsustainable.

The situation was a dire problem for one midwestern U.S. utility that serviced a sprawling geographic area with over 1000 miles of water mains. They were losing increasingly-large volumes of water but could not pinpoint the leaks.

Solution: nD's AI digital twin technology was used to create a live model of the distribution network and develop a monitoring and performance analytics system to pinpoint sections with leakage issues. It uses meter data to compare water entering and exiting the system, and isolates and analyzes issue areas so they can be proactively diagnosed and addressed. The system summarizes distribution system health at a glance, in near-real time, and guides crews to the specific areas that need attention. The first district in which the solution was deployed saw an 80% reduction in daily non-revenue water.