How Technology Can Help Utilities Improve Water Accountability

By Quinn Jackson-Elliott

Despite a decades-long fight against water loss, utilities still face an uphill battle to account for water that is pumped but not billed. The struggle with non-revenue water (NRW) isn’t getting any easier, either, as drought conditions continue to put increasing pressure on utilities to manage a finite — and in some cases, dwindling — water supply.

A 2018 study found that non-revenue water comprised 30 percent of water system input volumes worldwide. In terms of sheer volume, that’s equivalent to about 70 percent of the average flow of the Niger River – the principal river in West Africa — being treated, pumped and disappearing. But until now, utilities have had limited tools to accurately assess and effectively address water loss. Many available products address only one kind of water loss or work only on certain types of infrastructure. Worse still, assessments often rely on educated guesses and utility billing data to inform estimates. This current scenario means utilities are often left to piece together a patchwork of tools to guesstimate and track NRW across the water distribution network.