Marc Hannis, principal of the Innovation Fund at the UK water services regulator, Ofwat, highlights the urgent need for smart tech in the sector to future-proof cities. Across the country, our cities are struggling with water systems that face increasing pressure from growing populations and climate change. These pressures mean there is an urgent need for innovation in the water sector – particularly in the guise of smart technologies. If the right products can be created, scaled, and deftly embedded throughout the water system, we will be in a much better position to future-proof our cities.
One of the most pressing issues facing the water sector today is increased risk of sudden flooding. Over half a million English properties could be at risk of flooding by 2055, according to government advisors, causing significant disruption to individuals and infrastructure.
Extreme weather events
The challenge is caused by urbanisation – gardens turned into driveways and plans for paving, road-building and pedestrianised zones – meeting the harsh realities of the worsening impact of climate change. As the world’s temperature violently pushes upwards, we face increasing frequency of extreme weather events, including long droughts peppered with sudden and heavy storms.
Although these sudden downfalls cause problems everywhere – as huge volumes of water can’t be adequately absorbed by dry, cracked ground – the challenge is amplified in cities, where the ground is covered by impenetrable concrete surfaces.
A 2011 survey from the London Wildlife Trust found that London is losing the equivalent of two-and-a-half Hyde Parks’ worth of greenery a year from domestic gardens, and it is safe to say this figure has risen in the intervening decade. The result is what’s known as “surface water flooding” and occurs when these heavy-hitting storms overwhelm our water system.
Where this may paint a picture of citizens wading home from work, this does not need to be a reality – and soon won’t be – as a direct result of immense innovation efforts happening across the sector. Earlier this month, we announced that Ofwat is funding a new splash-free paving slab, as one of the winners of its latest competition – the Water Discovery Challenge.
The absorbent, paving slab seeks to mitigate the risk of sudden flooding and can replace existing impermeable concrete slabs. The innovation, that looks similar to existing concrete, but with a series of holes punched through it, will result in ‘splash-free’ cities, where water drips through the gaps, and can be stored, then slowly released, so as not to overwhelm or waterlog the ground beneath.
This is just one example of how innovation can bring us closer to water-smart cities, helping us to tackle growing urban challenges. However, simply preparing the landscapes of our cities to anticipate flooding – and resigning ourselves to the fate of the climate – is not enough.
Increasing climate resilience
The water industry, along with the rest of society, also needs to be doing our part to control the environmental impact leading to the sudden weather events in the first place. The Water Discovery Challenge finalists are addressing that too.
The competition shortlisted two new hydropower turbines which can harvest electricity directly from the water system. The first of these – the Pico-Stream Turbine – is designed to be easily fitted directly to water channels and act as a cost-effective way to increase the water sector’s climate resilience, by enabling it to harvest energy from water flow, and therefore reduce its need for energy from other resources including fossil-fuels.
The second turbine, from Vysion Technologies, seeks to provide a sustainable power source specifically for the remote monitoring equipment used across the water sector – which is currently run by single-use, unrecyclable batteries. As the sector becomes increasingly reliant on this remote infrastructure, it is essential that clean, reliable and affordable power can be provided anywhere in the network – and this turbine makes this a reality, by drawing on the networks own resources.
These ideas have each been awarded up to £50,000 from the Ofwat Innovation Fund, and will now embark on further developing their product through expert support and mentoring from water companies. These processes of innovation are crucial to finessing products that will help future-proof our water system.
As the challenges facing the water sector and wider society continue to develop in the wake of climate change, it is vital we continue to invest in, recognise and support the innovative thinking and projects that can help anticipate the future.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Marc Hannis
Quelle/Source: Smart Cities World, 13.07.2023
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