Using Artificial Intelligence for Smart Water Management Systems

Data-driven “intelligent” applications have become disruptors to daily living. Innovative water utilities can benefit from this digital technology revolution to improve their performance. By harnessing the power of artificial intelligence algorithms and big data analytics, water utilities can maximize information and data available to make better decisions while enhancing service delivery and reducing costs. This brief introduces the principles of artificial intelligence for water utilities embarking on this digital transformation to improve their water distribution operation in general, and to address unaccounted-for-water problems in particular. The brief describes some of the most extended applications of big data analytics and artificial intelligence-related algorithms in water supply, discusses how water utilities can pilot artificial intelligence toward the prognosis of unaccounted-for-water, and presents recommendations for implementation and preliminary cost estimates.