What Manufacturing Sites Can Learn from Municipalities About Water Loss - Chemical EngineeringIn recent years, São Paulo, Cape Town and other m...
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network
In recent years, São Paulo, Cape Town and other major world cities have come dangerously close to running out of water, and the criticality of water as a key business asset has never been clearer. Indeed, managing water risk is now identified as a chief priority by industrial giants around the world. But, what about the industrial sector’s municipal bedfellows on which they often rely for supply? Beyond the industrial sector’s monitoring and strategizing headlines, the day-to-day business of identifying leaks and bursts and reducing their occurrence in the first place is an emerging area for minimizing water loss and meeting environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals. For leak and burst management and reduction, copying some pages from the municipal playbook could well pay dividends for the manufacturing sector (Figure 1). This article provides some success stories in leak and burst monitoring from municipal water organizations, and discusses the key takeaways for industrial water users.
a close-up of a dirty metal pipe
FIGURE 1. Burst and leak monitoring systems can help water utilities and industrial users make great strides in their water-conservation efforts
Water loss in a municipal system
Aging infrastructure and shrinking freshwater sources are challenging water utilities and pushing them to take every available step to protect treated water from loss. Providing clean water for a price that consumers can absorb is in the crosshairs of strategy for water utilities, even while daily residential demand has been increasing due to a dramatic rise in people working from home. Additionally, utilities are facing growing pressure from regulators to step up water conservation and environmental protection measures. In response to those pressures, municipalities have been focusing on the following key areas, which are also applicable to the management of any industrial water process:
Leak detection — both to save water and because a significant proportion of bursts on larger pipes start as small leaks
Instantaneous burst locating so that the damage caused by bursts, which can be significant, is minimized
Identifying and removing the pressure spikes that occur on the network from operations and usage. Such spikes can significantly accelerate the failure of a pipeline
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https://www.chemengonline.com/what-manufacturing-sites-can-learn-from-municipalities-about-water-loss/?printmode=1Taxonomy
- Industrial Water Treatment
- Industrial Water Reuse
- Industrial Water Managment
- Leakage Detection
- Leakage
- Leakage Reduction
- leakage