WATER MANAGEMENT Smart Class 2022

“A Digital Journey to Transforming the Water Sector” – The UK water sector is driving towards a net-zero future where end to end processes are fully optimised for changing conditions and assets never fail unexpectedly. Historically, the water sector have only had access to proprietary or point solutions providing limited optimisation capability. However, by combining operational technology with digital models it should be possible to predict the future, connect the real and digital worlds, and utilise Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to automatically optimise for changing conditions.

Severn Trent is looking to drive digital innovation and in this keynote, Innovation Architect, James Ballard, will talk about some of their key activities, successes and lessons learned.

A taster of James’ presentation highlights includes:

• The design and deployment of the UK’s first storm preparation ready intelligent sewage pumping station;
• The development by Severn Trent’s in-house data science team of the “SPS dynamic risk matrix” – a dynamic flooding prediction tool for sewage pumping stations enabling proactive interventions;
• A £3m project awarded by OFWAT through the water breakthrough challenge to design and build “the artificial intelligence of things” – a fully autonomous waste catchment powered by artificial intelligence and smart sensors.
• Further experiences of transformative innovation in action to be revealed on the day!

“Project Groundwater – Innovation, Collaboration and Challenge in Flood Risk Management” – Flood risk and the adaption to it has perhaps never been so well funded in the UK, and yet flooding from groundwater is poorly understood, barely monitored, often not anticipated and very difficult to deal with. It can be hugely devastating due to the longer durations associated with high groundwater levels, but never draws significant attention or funding as it affects pockets of communities across certain geological areas.

Over a period of 6 years and with £7.3 million of initial funding, Project Groundwater aims to innovate and improve in all areas of risk management, from both the perspective of the risk management authorities and also that of the affected communities. Project Groundwater is led by Programme Manager, Jed Ramsay, from Buckinghamshire Council’s Strategic Flood Management Team.

In this keynote, Jed will be joined by the EA’s Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programmes Manager, Tom de la Rosa, who will provide an introduction to the national context of the £200 million FCRIP and its ambition to 2027. Jed will outline how Bucks are working through a large scale partnership with 33 organisations (ranging from Thames Water, Isle Utilities, the Environment Agency and the Forestry Commission to other local authorities such as Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire County Councils, Luton and Slough Borough Councils, and West Berkshire District Council) to develop, trial and adopt improved practices in how groundwater flooding is managed. This will cover areas of monitoring, mapping, modelling, warning, responding, prevention, resilience and damage reduction, plus an emphasis on research, evaluation and legacy.

“Enabling Data Driven Insights within Bristol Water” – The city of Bristol has always been synonymous with innovation: whether it’s Brunel, the aviation industry or Aardman studios; it’s always been a place of creative forward thinkers. Marc Tite leads the Asset Strategy and Planning team at Bristol Water from which, every day, 1.2 million people rely for clean, fresh drinking water:

“Since the creation of Bristol Water in 1846, our purpose has been, and continues to be, to make a positive impact on the lives of our customers, our communities, our colleagues and the environment – above and beyond the delivery of pure and reliable water”.

In this keynote, Marc will explain how Asset Management within Bristol Water is driving change to elevate the customer experience:

“We are working with industry experts to develop future technologies to gain insights into how our assets are behaving. These various technologies help us to prevent leaks, manage Dam safety, improve water quality, support customer engagement, deliver near real time network modelling to name a few”.

“Using Innovative Technology to Mitigate Pollution Caused by Wastewater Spills” – Monitoring wastewater levels in a wastewater network is imperative to enable utilities to effectively manage their network to prevent wastewater spills, reduce pollution and improve visibility, performance, and forecasting.

This presentation from Metasphere will show how poor wastewater network visibility can be significantly improved when employing a holistic, all-in-one approach for managing wastewater levels in a network, through the mass deployment of innovative technologies. The discussion will demonstrate how high wastewater levels and spillage risks can be pro-actively detected and reported to a secure, scalable data collection and device management platform hosted in the cloud.

Tim and Phil will further demonstrate how utilities are able to start to intelligently manage their wastewater networks by combining wastewater level data with historic, current and forecast rainfall data, and through the use of smart, machine-learning analytics, start to provide intelligent alarms allowing their control rooms to react to the most important spills.

“How SuDS Can Mitigate Flood Risk and the Impacts of Climate Change” – Project Centre, part of Marston Holdings, is helping both public and private sector organisations develop flood alleviation schemes that reduce the flood risk to people and properties across the UK.

With Climate Change making flood issues across the country even more severe, and the increased number of funding opportunities from different sources, it is the perfect time to address the devastating effects of flooding and its consequences to the population.

“Since the creation of Project Centre and its Flood and Water Management team, we have been passionate about providing solutions that deliver multiple benefits for people, nature and the built environment. We design flood alleviation schemes, traditional drainage and sustainable drainage systems (SuDS), as well as advise on planning processes and public consultations”.

Principal Civil Engineer, Javier Soto Martin – supported by Technical Director, Michelle Hope – will present one of their recent schemes developed for London Borough of Waltham Forest: the South Chingford Flood Mitigation scheme. It demonstrates how SuDS can address and reduce flood risk, but also provide an opportunity to improve biodiversity, ecology and enhance water quality.

Furthermore, the scheme gave residents the opportunity to increase their interaction with wildlife through improving local parks, as well as created a space for socialising, contemplation and recreation by including incidental play features that enables interaction with the new habitats.

“Driving Digital Transformation of a Sector in Support of the National Digital Twin Programme, with a Key Focus on 4D and Beyond” – This presentation will provide an overview of BIM4Water, a voluntary group of industry stakeholders with a membership following of 1300+. These individuals have come together to tackle key industry challenges using digital tools and processes. This sees a diverse array of unusual participants and competitors working alongside each other in a truly collaborative way. This includes regulators, 22 water companies, supply chain, manufacturers, trade bodies, institutions and academia.

Clare, Jamie and Rodrigue will review the journey of BIM4Water to date and highlight the key work of the 4D and beyond task group and its future plans in supporting the water sector in its adoption of visualisation to drive digital transformation and great collaborative practices.

“Managing Asset Information and Data for Water Industry Stakeholders” – Now more than ever, it’s important to ensure that assets achieve their intended lifecycle and beyond. Maintaining your assets and equipment through data management is an integral part of any asset management strategy.

In this presentation Green Valley Group’s Managing Director, Jonathon Davies, will explain how aligning your physical asset and asset data can create an environment where data can be trusted, giving you, senior management and investors the confidence that plant and equipment is being maintained correctly, and enabling your assets to meet or exceed their expected lifecycle.

Jonathon will outline “Why” we do this:

• To provide your Maintenance and Operations team with the best chance of success;
• Ensure your company assets have the required Planned Preventative Maintenance program, at the correct frequencies;
• Ensure company assets have all the identified and required Spare Parts, at the correct quantities and are perfectly aligned with each asset;
• Enable your Maintenance and Operations teams to trust/rely on the CMMS system to have all the Maintenance and Spares Data stored effectively and efficiently, in one place;
• Give Maintenance Metrics that are able to feed into your monthly dash boards for Senior Management Teams to review, giving a holistic view of your Plant/Asset Groups.

…and “How”:

• By reviewing and verifying your company assets, through collating the relevant data and creating an Asset Hierarchy Structure, based around your company processes;
• Reviewing your existing Asset Maintenance Regime, to ensure warranty requirements are adhered to (utilising OEM manuals and a ‘Best Practice’ approach);
• Reviewing current spares requirements and ensuring Spare Parts and Materials are ready for purchase and warehousing.