Transitioning practices of water utilities from reactive to proactive: Leveraging Australian best practices in digital technologies and data analytics

Developments in technology and data analytics bring opportunities for water utilities to proactively adapt their practices to better manage pressing challenges, such as water losses, ageing assets, and urban water scarcity due to climate change. Despite the increase in commercial digital technologies for monitoring urban water, wastewater and stormwater systems, digital transformation in water utilities has been occurring much slower than in other businesses (e.g., the energy sector). Leveraging from Australian best practices, this study aims to facilitate water utility’s digital transformation by establishing a targeted research agenda and a continuous improvement process for the successful implementation, operation, and improvement of smart water technologies. Four case studies on 1) automated and digital water consumption metering, 2) early warning of water mains breaks, 3) early detection of sewerage blockages and spills, and 4) smart rainfall reuse and flood mitigation are used to exemplify the potential benefits and hurdles of adopting digital technologies in water utilities, while highlighting pressing areas needing further research and development. Key research areas identified include: 1) development frameworks to map water utilities capacity and needs for ranking priority areas of investment, 2) improvements in sensor hardware, 3) integration of big, multi-sourced data and cybersecurity, 4) increase in generality of smart data applications for various field conditions (i.e., reduce the need for or level of customization), and 5) data-informed proactive asset management and water pricing. Key barriers to be overcome include 1) lack of internal capacity to develop, operate and integrate smart applications, 2) the risk conservative culture of water utilities when facing innovation, and 3) lack of operation standards among water utilities to promote benchmarking. It is imperative that water utilities actively drive the digital transformation process by perpetuating collaborations with research centres and the private sector, while simultaneously increasing in-house capacity through investments in skilled personnel and training.