Technology Perspectives

By Greg Baird Overnight, our worldview on public health has changed. The global threat of COVID-19 has forced all of us – as individuals, as families, as communities and as water operators – to re-evaluate our priorities. Water and wastewater facilities are re-examining emergency plans,Read More

By Greg Quist Stormwater and sanitary sewer systems may be some of the least technologically sophisticated systems in the utility’s arsenal. Most often, these systems are gravity-based and out of sight. As a result, operational assessments are limited to the occasional visual inspection when anRead More

By John Fillinger The previous decade saw the introduction and growth of smart water advancements in the water metering industry. Technologies such as LTE, IoT and advanced communications systems, have allowed water utilities around the world, and especially in the United States, to improve controlRead More

Itron, Inc. and CPS Energy, a municipally-owned energy and natural gas utility in the City of San Antonio, Texas, have expanded their collaboration to improve energy-water literacy and launched a new online resource aimed at providing interactive educational resources and materials to educate communities andRead More

Spending for digital water solutions in the United States and Canada is forecasted to grow 6.5 percent annually, far outpacing the growth of the broader municipal water and wastewater sector over the next decade, says a new report from water market research firm Bluefield Research.Read More

By Greg Baird In Japan, there is a saying that there are many paths to the top of Mount Fugi. In the United States, we have the saying that all paths to water utility cost savings lead to infrastructure asset management. A water utility strivesRead More

A Balanced Scorecard Approach Incorporating Intangible Benefits Helps Articulate the Benefits of SCADA and Other Automation Projects By Dave Kubel SCADA projects frequently support strategic initiatives not focused on purely economic benefits. However, many utilities often look first to an economic return on investment (ROI) analysisRead More

By Bryan Dickerson & Jesse Heywood The City of Mesa, Ariz., provides water and wastewater service to more than a half-million people every day through its Water Resources Department. In 2014, the city began a process that culminated in one of its largest projects to dateRead More

By Gigi Karmous-Edwards Water utilities around the world have been using hydraulic models for engineering and expansion since the 1950s. A hydraulic model is a physics based mathematical model of a fluid flow system for water. In the majority of cases, the hydraulic model simulationRead More

By Rob Meston Effective water loss control (WLC) is one of the most critical activities every water system must face, particularly as droughts increase and conservation mandates become more stringent. Leak detection has quickly become a cornerstone of every WLC program. No matter what typeRead More