Bruce Lee once said, “You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.” Perhaps, he should have added that water contaminates just as easily, shapelessly and formlessly. 

Water is a human right, but sadly, 40% of the global population suffers from water scarcity, and about 30% lack access to safely managed drinking water. UN figures estimates, ~1000 children die each day due to water-borne diseases which could have been prevented. The misery doesn’t end here – 80% of wastewater used for human activities is released into rivers and seas, untreated. And, 70% of water extracted from rivers, lakes, and aquifers is used for irrigation. Water contamination affects each one of us, although in different ways. 

The other serious problem is Unaccounted-for-water or UFW. There’s a loss of 20 – 30 % due to leakage. This adversely impacts the financial prospects of water utility companies. Numerical tools such as Hydraulic Modelling 1.0 has had limited impact and not least due to lag in digital adoption compared to other utilities such as the energy sector. Cost-effective sensors combined with IoT devices have shifted the landscape towards AI-based applications and Analytics. Real-time data is used to make better decisions, enhance service delivery, optimize CAPEX, and reduce operational costs.   

UFW is a sensitive matter. No local authority would like to admit that water is being wasted due to leakage or faulty pipeline. The question arises – is the information attained through advanced ICT applications being used to ethically regulate the system? AI is not a silver bullet. It only points us in a certain direction, and ultimately, it’s humans who will have to execute. 

Under the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, at #6 is Ensure Access to Water and Sanitation for All. We’ve also seen how critical it is during the pandemic – frequent washing of hands is one of the key recommendations. We must also bear in mind that 892 million people continue with open defecation because they don’t have a choice, and when we talk about tech interventions, this kind of on-ground conditions cannot be overlooked, especially in developing countries where the infrastructure leaves much to be desired. 

Closer home, the Tamil Nadu government is one of the most advanced in AI adoption, and water management is well in their list. A water body comprises water, soil, vegetation, or construction within legal boundaries. Just like any ML-based system, images are fed to make the system learn and distinguish between these types. On-ground actual images are then captured (through satellite imagery) and used to find out if there’s an encroachment. Drones proved to be ineffective due to human interference and are not cost-effective either – that’s why satellite images work best under these conditions. The system knows what a water body looks like including the components mentioned above. And, it can call out instances of encroachment. But a very small encroachment (say a room 10 ft * 10 ft) may be hard to capture in its pixelated form in the satellite images. To address this, the system would require imagery data of higher resolution which is sensitive information and costly too. National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) has the mandate for the establishment of ground stations for receiving satellite data, generation of data products, dissemination to the users, development of techniques for remote sensing applications including disaster management support and geospatial services for good governance.

India consumes 600 billion cubic metres (158 trillion gallons) of water annually. Of this, 245 billion cubic metres are drawn from aquifers. India is dependent on water drawn from aquifers more than any other nation and accounts for about a quarter of global demand for groundwater. 90% of this water is used for irrigation, and it’s not surprising that there are 30 million water wells across the country. This leads to great wastage and contamination. 

The Ministry of Water Resources is responsible for laying down policy guidelines and programmes for the development and regulation of the country's water resources. It’s a tremendous opportunity for the industry and industry bodies to work with the ministry and adopting tech in a manner so that we don’t end up as a water-scarce nation. This will require a great deal of innovation & cost-effective solution. 

Image by Ernesto Rodriguez from Pixabay