Anglian Water is the largest provider of water and wastewater services in England and Wales. In its 2024 Water Resources Management Plan, the company emphasizes the role of digital technologies in its efforts to minimize water leaks.
The updated plan sets a goal of achieving a 38% reduction in water leakage by 2050. In the document, Anglian Water states, “To realize our objectives, we must employ both innovative techniques and established methods. The implementation of smart metering presents a significant opportunity to enhance our detection of external leaks from customer supply pipes and internal plumbing leaks by improving our understanding of continuous flows in customer properties—which typically indicate a leak—and by gaining a deeper comprehension of our overall network.”
The company intends to leverage cutting-edge technologies to further mitigate leakage. “We are actively testing advanced solutions, such as thermal imaging drones to identify leaking pipes and satellite imagery to pinpoint areas of leakage,” the report indicates.
Highlighting the significance of smart technologies in advancing water management, Dave Martin, Director of Digital Data and Technology at Anglian Water, asserts: “Reflecting on the last 15-18 months and looking ahead to our next funding cycle, it’s evident that technology will be a critical factor in helping us achieve our customer and environmental objectives.”
For Martin, this entails adopting a fresh perspective on technology. Instead of concentrating solely on building the IT infrastructure to support business operations, his aim is to position technology at Anglian Water as a tool for empowering delivery teams across the organization. He emphasizes that IT should not be tasked with delivering every piece of software needed; rather, “We’ll work alongside our business colleagues to enhance their digital literacy and capabilities, enabling them to derive maximum value from data and technology independently.”
Emphasizing Digital Opportunities
One promising area for Anglian Water is the digital simulation of its water network. In 2023, a report published by Cambridge Consultants and Capgemini explored the role of technology integrations in Anglian Water’s long-term delivery strategy. This document, titled “The Final Integrated Technology Scenario Development Report,” highlighted how artificial intelligence (AI) and digital twin technologies could lead to genuine operational transformation within Anglian Water and the wider water industry.
The report points out that AI can support various applications by enabling faster and more accurate, “human-like” analyses of large and diverse datasets—from providing insights into customer behavior to optimizing water networks for peak efficiency. According to the authors, effective adoption of AI could boost efficiency and quality, inform decision-making, and ultimately enable autonomous functionality across the water network, thereby enhancing safety and sustainability while improving the network’s adaptability and resilience. They stress that achieving these advantages will necessitate changes to processes and approaches, as well as to IT and operational technologies. “Anglian Water needs to embrace a more agile way of working to make the most of the insights and autonomy that AI can provide,” they write.
Creating a Digital Model of the Water Network
In the water sector, reducing downtime and enhancing customer service efficiency remain priorities. While the industry is committed to increasing its capacity for detecting pipe bursts, addressing these challenges can often lead to extended disruption in water supply for customers.
Gary Copeman, a senior optimization engineer at Anglian Water, explains that the company utilizes a “digital representation” of its water network. “For instance,” he says, “we can evaluate a property developer’s plans—based on the number of units they intend to build—to understand the potential impact on our network. This helps us determine whether we need to reinforce certain sections or if we have sufficient capacity for new developments. We also factor in variables such as pumping pressures and storage levels.”
Anglian has initiated an extensive pressure monitoring program, continually adding more pressure monitors to its water network. “With all this additional data, we’ve gained a clearer understanding of network conditions,” he states.
Although pressure sensor data currently needs to be imported into the modeling software operating in the company’s control room, Anglian Water employs an application named Qatium. This tool is built on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s open-source modeling system, allowing field technicians to access real-time model information.
The browser-based application provides technicians on-site with the same flow and direction data that exists in the model, enabling them to comprehend the dynamics of the network. According to Copeman, “Qatium has expedited leak management processes by reducing the need for communication between the control room and on-site technicians. Previously, if a technician needed network data, they would have to call the control room and talk to a modeller, which would add delays—especially critical when a major leak affects customers.” The software operates through a browser on the ruggedized Samsung Galaxy Tab Active Pro 4 tablet, while the model data resides in the cloud with minimal on-device processing.
Ongoing Digital Initiatives
Like many large organizations, implementing technological changes at Anglian Water takes time—particularly since some operational methods are deeply ingrained. Martin notes that the company has traditionally gathered telemetry data into a conventional enterprise system that generates alarms when certain thresholds are met.
Simultaneously, the company has been developing a unified data environment that integrates both sensor telemetry and corporate data. “We are continuously modernizing our extensive technology landscape,” Martin explains. “Core IT serves as the mechanism to aggregate, ingest, and curate all of this data.”
Providing field access to the same data leveraged for digital simulations is just one way this strategy enhances operational efficiency at Anglian Water. As technological capabilities expand over time, Martin plans to introduce more advanced analytics and visualization tools.