Welsh Water’s innovative project idea to use artificial intelligence (AI) improving the way water companies monitor algae levels in reservoirs has received £385,000 in funding from Ofwat’s Innovation Fund.
The project is one of 16 solutions being awarded a share of £40 million today in the water regulator’s latest innovation competition – the Water Breakthrough Challenge.
The initiative, from Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water will use artificial intelligence (AI) to transform algal monitoring into a high-throughput, high-accuracy laboratory or field-based process for a fraction of the cost, compared to traditional algal monitoring, allowing better risk prediction enabling water companies to take earlier, more cost effective and targeted actions.
Phil Jones, Technical Development Manager at Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water said:
“Ensuring drinking water is safe to drink requires constant monitoring and prediction of risk. This is true for the water quality risks associated with algae and cyanobacteria e.g., taste and odour causing compounds which are predicted to increase with frequency and intensity with climate change.
“Traditional algal monitoring is time consuming, resource intensive and does not provide sufficient data for predictive modelling of algal risks. This funding will enable a significant leap forward in algal analysis and accelerate the use of algal data to predict water quality risks. This will provide benefits to customers and wider society, as it will better equip the water industry to tackle current and future algal related water quality challenges.”
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