Wessex Water has won this year’s Institute of Water National Innovation Award 2017 for their innovation on ‘Innovative Catchment Management Approaches’.
The Institute of Water National Innovation Awards, sponsored by MWH, celebrates some of the most innovative individuals and companies from within the UK water and sewerage sector.
Wessex Water’s team lead, Dan Green, said:
“Wessex Water are delighted to have won this year’s Institute of Water national innovation award for our increasingly diverse catchment management work. It is great that through its awards the IoW champions and recognises innovation – as a theme it will become more and more important for the development of individuals in the water sector and the organisations in which they work.”
Wessex Water’s innovation looks at improving catchments through smarter permitting and payment for measures to tackle diffuse pollution.
The team are pioneering innovative ways to improve the water environment. Focusing initially on nutrient levels,the catchment-based work has two new elements:
Catchment permitting: a new method for regulating end-of-pipe treatment; specifically, addressing phosphorus discharges from sewage treatment works in the Bristol Avon catchment. Developed in partnership with the Environment Agency, it includes a tonnage reduction target spread across 24 sites, and various improvement measures.
EnTrade: reducing diffuse pollution via a ‘one buyer, many sellers’ online auction platform, devised initially for Poole Harbour. Participants bid for payment to enact measures to reduce diffuse pollution, e.g. planting winter cover crops.
Sir Brian Bender, Chief Executive, Water UK and head of the judging panel, said:
“The judges thought that the innovation showed a big partnership approach and was a great example of innovation driving innovation. It is where they thought the sector should go and is just the starting point for this mechanism.
“There were some strong entries, but the panel unanimously came to the view that the entry by Wessex Water showed the most innovation, and was the deserved winner”.
Winners of the Institute of Water were as follows:
1st place - Wessex Water - Improving catchments through smarter permitting and payment for measures to tackle diffuse pollution
2nd Place - Catchment Team, Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water - Deep Rooted Solutions: Growing Landscape Resilience
Other finalists included:
- APEM Limited - Misconnections from the air
- Concrete Canvas - Concrete Canvas, Concrete Impregnated Fabric
- Utility Focus Group, Scottish water - Trailer mounted vacuum excavator (T-VAC for short)
- Southern Water Enabling Team – using new technology to search for bats
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