Emerging AI Technologies and Ways of Working to Optimize Water

Technologies that leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) and advanced data analysis have been emerging in the water industry to ensure the stability and longevity of critical infrastructure. Three case studies are presented in this paper to showcase real-world examples of how AI has been used to reduce operational costs, detect issues to optimize spending, and streamline the design of water infrastructure assets. The challenges of implementing new technologies in the water industry will also be presented, particularly when traditional practices and processes need to be maintained to ensure customer satisfaction and reliability. The technologies presented in this paper 1) significantly reduce energy consumption at the raw water pump station, 2) decrease the pipe condition auditing effort by up to 30%, optimizing renewal spending by as much as 20%, and 3) reduce the time to generate a conceptual WWTP design by up to 80% to enable alternatives analysis of innovating technologies.