Clean Technology Meets Data Science: News and Articles

Last time we looked at how machine learning can help water utilities manage their maintenance and operations efforts - especially when dealing with hard-to-reach parts of the water system like buried water pipes. Today, let’s talk about how machine learning is being used in developing new technologies and building prototypes for decentralized, small-scale systems. Desalination has been studied and deployed at scale for several years now. As different parts of the planet face increasing water stress, desalination is being evaluated as one of several potential solutions - together with water conservation and recycled water. In the Middle East of course, large-scale desalination plants have been in operation for several decades, with Israel being one of the countries at the forefront of developing and implementing the technology. Large-scale desalination plants have the advantage of scale - you can build a single system and then connect it to your existing water network. Sufficient data a...

When are machine learning and data science useful in the water sector? Are they useful if you have a large system with lots of data? Or are they useful if you’re looking at small-scale, decentralized systems?   The answer, as you might have guessed, is both. The difference is in the type of tools and algorithms being deployed and the results that are being sought - but, in both cases, machine learning and data science provide invaluable help in getting people access to clean, safe drinking water. Let’s take a look at two very different applications of water tech. One is for a water utility that is attempting to improve its systems to ensure that clean, safe water continues to flow to the citizens of the city and the other is for a small, rural community that needs cheap, reliable access to clean water. Interestingly, while the goals and requirements of both these applications are very different, the thread that connects both of them is machine learning. Today, we’ll talk about the ...

If you were thinking about countries and cities that were at the forefront of innovation in the water sector, would Singapore immediately come to mind? Singapore has long been researching and implementing methods to conserve water, to reuse water and to work with citizens and the community on understanding their needs - both now and in the future. In many ways, the challenges that Singapore faces are the challenges of the future - a small city with limited access to natural resources, including water; a high-tech economy that provides its citizens with the comforts and benefits associated with a developed country; and a changing climate that is impacting its ability to deliver those benefits. So, let’s talk about how Singapore is using the latest in data science and machine learning to help solve its water problems! Singapore’s Public Utilities Board (PUB) is the national water agency responsible for “supplying good water, reclaiming used water and taming stormwater”. As an agency, it ...