Across South Africa, water stress is a major problem. We saw it in the Mother City in 2017/18 when Cape Town’s taps almost ran dry. And now we’re seeing it again in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro of Gqeberha where water is fast running out. According to Antonino Manus, PwC South Africa's water sector operations transformation partner, the situation might be different from province to province but it comes down to two things – quality and quantity. If your water resources are polluted, this makes it more difficult for whoever is downstream to collect that water and clean it, she explains. And, obviously, this affects the quantity of water that's available. But this isn’t the only thing affecting water quantity. The amount of water we have is also impacted by changing weather patterns and, moving down the supply chain, what we find is that existing infrastructure is not being maintained properly or upgraded effectively so leakages and system failures are inevitable.
For Sheilla Carvalho, director: leading markets at Royal HaskoningDHV, conversations about the amount of water we have need to start with looking at where we’re getting our water from and coming up with ways to increase sources of water. “We have to think about alternative sources because we have an over dependence on surface water. It is critical to look at groundwater and grey water, water reuse, different ways of harvesting water and we also need to think about different ways of obtaining fresh water through processes like desalination.”
But she’s quick to point out that water stress and scarcity isn’t only happening close to home. Europe is having a particularly difficult time right now. Most of France is on drought alert as the country battles an exceptionally dry summer. A drought has been declared across various regions in England driving water companies to impose tough restrictions around overuse. And the Portuguese government recently recommended that various municipalities temporarily increase water prices for their biggest consumers and suspend street cleaning and the watering of public parks and gardens. “This is quite serious. I think it's something we should all worry about,” she says.
So, how did we find ourselves in this circumstance in the first place?
Carvalho notes that we've relied too heavily on what has worked in the past. “We've allowed our behaviours to go a bit unchecked; only acting or making changes when we’re in a crisis,” she says, stressing that often it’s already too late. A lot of planning and time has to go into addressing water supply and scarcity. Once you've got your planning in place and your strategy is implemented, you can then bring in new technologies that will help you reduce water loss and make it possible to use water more effectively.
From fibre optic cables to digital twins
As a starting point, Carvalho outlines that innovating water resource management comes down to having good, clean data. “If we want to improve our management and use of water resources, we need to make sure that we are gathering, collecting and analysing the right data.” Only once you have this information, can you use something like BIM (Building Information Modelling) to build virtual replicas of your entire water network so that you can do scenario planning and test how a decision will pan out in a virtual setting before you deploy it in the real world. These digital twins get information from sensors placed in the real infrastructure providing data around how the water supply system is performing and allowing the measurement of the quantity of water used in a particular area, for example. With this, it’s possible to understand the behaviour of that system and pick up patterns that can then lead to improvements, she says. Taking things a step further, add AI to the mix and it will be possible to predict how systems will behave in the future. This makes it easier to plan your maintenance schedules more strategically. “It’s not only about deploying new infrastructure. It's also about coming up with better and more efficient ways to maintain and preserve what we already have.”
You don’t always need the most high-end technology, says Manus. But you do need to spend money on technologies that are fit-for-purpose and that your staff can understand and have been trained to use. Discussing innovation in this space, Manus highlights work being conducted by the engineering faculty at the University of Pretoria to better balance water. She says water balancing is much like ‘balancing the books’, because you’re looking at what you're putting in and what you're taking out so that you can identify any irregularities. The team at Pretoria are testing the idea of using fibre optic cables to detect water loss in real-time. These cables are placed inside a water pipeline – with small probes fitted in different areas – so that they can detect if there are any spikes or lulls in flow rate and pick up problems before they escalate.
We've allowed our behaviours to go a bit unchecked; only acting or making changes when we’re in a crisis.
Sheilla Carvalho, Royal HaskoningDHV
Carvalho is confident that technology deployment is key to successful water resource management, but she asserts that technology is just a means and innovation is just a tool. “We need to really be clear about what we want out of those tools so that we can make sure that they serve our priorities and needs.” She’s adamant that addressing water scarcity requires a mindset change across society. “This mindset shift must include everyone – from individuals to governments and businesses across all sectors. We need to preserve and value this important resource. It all starts there. When we get this right, we will consume less, we will be driven to uncover new ways to reuse water and we as individuals, communities and collectives will also be less likely to pollute this precious resource.”
* This feature was first published in the October edition of ITWeb's Brainstorm magazine
* Article first published on brainstorm.itweb.co.za
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