The transformative power of remote, online water quality monitoring & real-time data for utilities

While water utilities must process, monitor and meet certain regulatory water quality requirements at a plant before sending final treated water into the distribution system, they also have to measure quality at the pretreatment stage, which is often affected by localized environmental changes. At the end of treatment, this now high-quality water enters the water distribution network and is regarded as stable, although ingress of chemical compounds, and environmental contaminants such as from farming and industrial sources, together with common pipeline construction materials, can affect water quality as it flows through the network. To safeguard quality within distribution networks, water is spot tested using hand-held grab sampling methods that have been employed since the 1960’s. These methods are time-consuming, costly to operate and do not offer any real-time value to a utility.

By contrast, smart digital sensor solutions placed in-network to monitor water quality provide the essential insights needed to ensure the quality of the water a utility puts into the network is consistently maintained up to the point that it reaches the tap in real-time. When sensors are strategically deployed in the drinking water distribution network, the insights can be used to respond swiftly and limit disruption of service should water quality levels drop below a predefined threshold. These cellular-enabled, low-powered water quality sensors provide real-time, accurate high-resolution water quality data. This data is also useful to manage public health concerns if water quality becomes compromised, pinpointing the location of a contamination event.

Why is water quality monitoring across the complete water cycle important?

Garry Tabor (G.T.): If you think about monitoring, and specifically analytical monitoring of water quality in any aspect of water treatment, it's fair to say that historically we know a lot about the process of abstraction of water, whether it be volume or the quality of that water we are extracting.

Once water arrives inside the treatment plant, it has to be treated and prepared for the public. We're pretty good at that process, too. Pretreatment challenges from the environment and new pollutants create many future treatment challenges, but we are learning to evolve with them.

Smart digital sensor solutions placed in-network to monitor water quality provide the insights needed to ensure consistent quality

Water quality instrumentation is focused very much on process control of all the different methodologies we use to polish the water, filter the water, and disinfect the water. The final part of this process is the journey from the water treatment plant to the tap. This is the one part of the journey where our ability to ensure water quality is maintained to standards has failed to keep pace with digital smart water technology innovation.

Even in 2024, we know remarkably little about this journey and what happens to the water before it reaches your tap, and what's become apparent to everybody in the water sector over the last 10 years is that we need to pay much closer attention to this critical part of the process. Failure to act here poses an existential risk to our current model of utility drinking water.

Aging infrastructure is a major concern. It's porous, it leaks due to continuous ground movement, has ingress of all sorts of things that affect the quality of the water that's being delivered to the tap. As a consequence of that, if you look at social media and listen to public perception, there's a distrust in the product (drinking water) and the provider (the utility).

Aging infrastructure is porous, and any number of factors can affect the quality of the water being delivered to the tap

Consequently, smart water connects everything throughout the entire process. It allows you to measure the water quality within a distribution system when it leaves the water treatment plant all the way to the tap. With in-network water quality monitoring, we can take every piece of captured data and link it up with all of the other processes giving the water company total visibility from source to tap.

Of course, this allows the water utility to see at a granular level what's going on in their network related to water quality, but it also enables them to convey that information to the consumer to improve trust in utility water and rates of satisfaction.

What monitoring needs exist in the pretreatment process, and inside a water treatment works? How can this process be updated?

Robert Wurm (R.W.): No matter where your drinking water comes from, either mountain springs, groundwater extraction, or surface water sources like reservoirs, rivers and lakes; a certain level of treatment is required to turn this raw water into final drinking water.

These treatment processes are defined by the quality of the source water which is where our devices come in, as water needs monitoring one way or another. For example, rivers change their condition every day. Global flooding events can change water quality very quickly in these natural water bodies, too.

So, we have been monitoring surface water intake globally, particularly for organic removal prior to treatment. This helps to inform the final treatment process, so intake monitoring is important; just as continuous online monitoring that occurs in parallel to the treatment process is important.

Turbidity, organics (such as TOC; DOC), pH, ammonia and conductivity are the main parameters utilities monitor for at this stage, but there can be other requirements on additional parameters, all depending on the intake water quality.  Finally, when the water is produced, there needs to be a final effluent control measurement, or a control mechanism, to make sure the product is clean and safe before being distributed to the consumer.

So, there is all this monitoring happening between the extraction of raw water and the treatment process, and yet there are, like Garry said, thousands of kilometers or miles very often in between the treatment plant and the consumer where utilities have historically been blind to further information.

With real-time online water quality monitoring, we seek to gain transparency for water quality not only once a month or once every three months. Continuous monitoring allows users to set up contamination alarms for water safety, and not just for measuring standard parameters, but also using event detection algorithms; so-called spectral alarms or pattern alarms.

With this solution, we can create very efficient event detection alarms. Utilities not only can have continuous access to online data, but they can also look at the data and set some thresholds, which empowers them to react much faster than just waiting for a few days until results come back from the lab or the water might shoot out of the street because of pipes breaking.

What role does water quality data play in the relationship between a water utility and their end consumer?

G.T.: Well, the data for abstraction and processing has always existed for the utility. However, as Robert just explained for information on water quality within distribution, this has relied on, and still relies on, an army of water quality scientists and lab technicians running around taking small samples of water which they place into a lab kit with chemicals for some analysis. The more sophisticated profiling (wet chemistry analysis) of the water then happens in a laboratory, which means that results are made available some days later, which can sometimes be too late. This methodology is no more than a snapshot in time.

So, monitoring water quality in the distribution network instantly feeds the information back to the water company so they can see it, act on it and make decisions.

R.W.: That's allowing them to be less reactive; it allows them to make the necessary decisions to mitigate potential public health problems. Utilities are also saving money on lab testing because online monitoring delivers measurement on demand, and our software even analyses the data on demand for proactive actions.

G.T.: You know, Robert's right. When you have these lab technicians going out, think about it from an environmental standpoint. There are hundreds and hundreds of technicians driving all over the country, spending time traveling to locations to take water samples which offer little more than a record of historical data.

Monitoring water quality in the distribution network instantly feeds the information back to the water company so they can act on it

They're going out, only taking a snapshot of what happened in the past, so they aren’t working with real-time data. They're using chemicals, so there’s a cost associated with that. Add in the time saved because you won’t have to send anyone out to re-test repeatedly and the capital cost of putting in real-time water quality monitoring equipment can be paid back in months, depending on the size of the utility.

As you can see, using and understanding water quality data can greatly improve the relationship and engagement between the consumer and the water utility because the water utility is now operating more efficiently in real-time.

How do Badger Meter solutions help water utilities deliver on their responsibility to provide clean and safe drinking water?

R.W.: A utility has the responsibility to provide, according to the World Health Organization and according to local country standards, safe drinking water for its consumers. But as we’ve pointed out, it’s a long way from the utility to the consumers; and there are many ways things can go wrong. When I talk to utilities for the first time, they will tell us “We don't have any problem with our drinking water.”

But the fact is, it's a complex process to take it from raw to potable water. And this is where Badger Meter and our advanced technology can help. We start by monitoring basic parameters – pH, turbidity, temperature and residual chlorine – to make sure the disinfection is always done correctly and within certain tolerances. Every country does that differently, which is why our custom solutions are designed to fit different applications.

We use optical sensors to record and track data that is used to build algorithms to make sure we see events and contamination episodes as quickly as possible; sometimes within 10-20 seconds.

Our sensors are speaking up and alarming continuously when something goes wrong. With our spectrometer probes, we provide an optical UV-Vis spectrum over a wide range, so we are “fingerprinting” the water and if this fingerprint is changing, it's a clear signal that something has changed in the quality of the water. E.g. a contaminant has moved in, or there is water blending going on — so Badger Meter technology alerts before a utility would have otherwise noticed, and the knowledge gives them a great tool for quick action — this is called advanced event detection.

Advanced event detection algorithms can be and should be adapted to every utility and every part of the drinking water supply

Going a step further, these algorithms can be and should be actually adapted to every utility and every part of the drinking water supply. For example, one corner of the city could be supplied by one kind of treated surface water and the other part of the city could be supplied by some groundwater. And the fingerprint, as I mentioned, will look different, because the water although it is in the same city has different sources.

We can see this difference clearly, and we would see this for every kind of utility, wherever they get their water from. As we continue to do this on a global scale, our database of algorithms continues to grow and improve. We can use software to alert for new conditions over time.  So, with Badger Meter devices, we see a lot before others see it and we can not only detect but alert very quickly based on this knowledge. It’s more than just measuring single parameters; we can measure multiple optical wavelengths at once and measure completely different parameters at different points in the same network depending on what a utility would be looking to know.

What advice would you share with a water utility looking to begin monitoring water quality within their network?

R.W.: Badger Meter is not only a manufacturer of flow meters and metering solutions, but we are also experts in providing a wide range of water quality sensors, and pressure sensors and our customers see us as a partner, to bring solutions to potential problems.

We have a unique offering when it comes to water quality. The number of parameters we can measure in the network is very unique in the industry.

G.T.: We should all consider our role and our place in the water sector. Individually, we each have a responsibility and a role to play in providing healthy, quality water. Safe drinking water is a matter of public health and protecting the world’s most precious resource is at the heart of what we do at Badger Meter. As global water technology specialists, we see ourselves as true partners to utilities, working alongside them to develop solutions that ensure high-quality water that benefits all.  

We live in a technology data driven world, and today’s consumer demands quality they trust. They want information provided to them in a manner they have grown used to, like smart devices. Our social contract means they have a right to know that their water is clean, healthy and safe to drink. At Badger Meter, we are moving that whole conversation forward to not only empower the water utility, but to put the information in the hands of the consumer, which is where the real power is.

With more than a century of experience, Badger Meter offers solutions for the complete water cycle. Custom-built for any application, BlueEdge^TM features water quality, pressure and flow monitoring devices and software that deliver actionable data for customers worldwide.