Our Aging Water Infrastructure Desperately Needs A Digital Makeover
In the United States, some 63 million people have been exposed to unsafe drinking water more than once in the past ten years. Meanwhile, roughly 240,000 water mains break each year, wasting >2 trillion gallons of treated water and costing our economy $2.6 billion/yr. Our water infrastructure is old (at least 50 years in most places) and deteriorating rapidly. In fact, the American Society of Civil Engineers ranked our drinking water infrastructure a D, and a D+ for wastewater treatment.
Some strategic city water utilities are now turning to predictive maintenance to both cut costs and minimize the disruption of outright overhauling water infrastructure. In the District of Columbia, DC Water runs footage collected by autonomous robots inside water mains through an AI-based neural network to detect and classify pipe defects. And now, in a recent partnership with Microsoft, DC Water is developing proof-of-concept for real-time water quality monitoring, predictive analytics for water main breaks and sewer overflows, and optimization of pumps at its wastewater treatment plant — the largest in the world.
As DC Water and Microsoft continue to test the waters of predictive analytics, we’re likely to see more cities shift toward the “digital utility” model. What I’m most curious about at the moment are the ethical implications of the public agency-private tech company partnership. Who owns the intellectual property of these applied civic innovations? Will every city be able to access this technology, or only the best-funded? As we wade into the waters of high-tech public utilities, let’s make sure that equity and access remain top concerns.
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