Northumbrian Water is embarking on a project that will use artificial intelligence tools to gather data and develop digital models that will help address pollution in water bodies.
Known as River Deep Mountain AI, the project has been awarded more than £5 million (about $6,3 million) in the Water Breakthrough Challenge, a competition run by UK water regulator Ofwat to drive innovation and collaboration in the water sector. It is part of the £10 million worth of funding (about $12,7 million) secured by Northumbrian Water’s innovation projects this year.
River Deep Mountain AI intends to develop open-source, scalable digital models, where machine Learning will be used to analyse both existing data and new data inputs. It aims to use data insights to better understand the factors that impact water bodies – such as agriculture, road run-offs and storm overflows – and reduce river pollution.
“The River Deep Mountain AI (RDMAI) project is set to revolutionise the way we gather insights and data on waterbody pollution – and will accelerate real positive environmental change across our regions. We are really excited to launch this exciting project at our very own Innovation Festival in July”, said Nigel Watson, Chief Information Officer at Northumbrian Water Group.
Project partners include other UK water utilities, IT firm Cognizant, Xylem, The Rivers Trust, etc. Stig Martin Fiskå, Global Head of Cognizant Ocean, said the project would pave the way for the development of sophisticated and nuanced representations of river health and water quality, reports the BBC. "Our anticipated collaboration with Northumbrian Water, in particular, aims to help improve the quality and biodiversity of the rivers in the North East of England and lay a strong foundation for other water systems organizations to leverage our expertise for the same", he added.
