Tracing leaks could end water restrictions

JSE-LISTED smart technologies firm Jasco Group is in discussions with the City of Cape Town over the introduction of technology that has the potential to minimise or even eliminate the need for water restrictions in the region.

About 36.8% of all the municipal water supplied in South Africa is lost before it reaches users, according to research released by the Water Research Commission. This was largely because of undetected leaks, most of them below ground, which made them difficult to trace, Eckart Zollner, the head of business development at Jasco Group, said this week.

Every year, South Africa loses purified water worth about R11 billion because of water theft and leaks. “These leaks have a direct impact on non-revenue water (NRW) or water that is lost that could be generating revenue,” Zollner said.

Exacerbating the problem is unmapped underground networks. It is imperative that utilities and municipalities be able to map and monitor their underground networks to prevent significant losses.

Zollner said big data analytics technology, which continuously analyses data from hundreds of meters and sensors to determine actual water flow throughout the distribution network, could mitigate the impact on NRW.

“Using sophisticated data analytics and predictive algorithms, the technology identifies problems in the water network at the earliest possible point, long before people relying on conventional ways of measuring data would realise it.

“The system will immediately trigger an alarm and identify which section of the network has to be attended to. This prevents a small problem from turning into a large problem. Losses can’t be reduced to zero, but to 3% to 5%.”

Zollner said data analytics technology could have averted Day Zero if it had been implemented a few years ago.

“Unfortunately, now it’s too late to catch up with the shortcomings brought about by the drought and population growth. But it will be able to avert future scenarios like another Day Zero,” Zollner pointed out.

Big data analytics technology is used in arid countries such as South Africa, Australia, Singapore, the UK, Spain, Argentina, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, US and Romania.