The Promise of Artificial Intelligence in Water Management

AI can be leveraged to build efficient water plants and optimize water resources to reduce energy costs in the long run.

Artificial intelligence is disrupting industries with its wide range of capabilities including augmenting human intelligence and processing huge data chunks. There have been discussions and reports on sustainable AI which can work efficiently while conserving the environment. AI has also proved effective in renewable resources industries. Let us discuss the impact of AI in another sector – the water sector. Water is an imperative need to live life and it has been going through pollution and scarcity for a long time. Climate change is a reality that can increase water stress in many places and increased water contamination will result in a huge water crisis which we are not yet ready to deal with. According to a report by UNICEF and WHO, 1 in 3 people globally does not have access to safe drinking water. This scenario is going to become grave in the coming years if we do not address the issue.

AI in water management might come off as a huge revelation but it can change the way we treat and manage water sources around us. Let us see how AI can impact the global water sector.

Managing Water Wastage

An India Today report states that it is estimated that around 40% of piped water in India is lost to leakage. According to a US EPA report, an average family can waste 180 gallons of water per week, or 9400 gallons of water annually, from household leaks, which is equivalent to the amount of water needed to wash more than 300 loads of laundry.

We waste a lot of water through leakages, burst pipes, etc. and AI and IoT can help reduce this wastage. Implementing AI to analyze real-time water loss and automating pipes to shut off whenever there is a leak can improve the amount of water wastage. AI can predict leaks in storage tanks and help in mending them before it is too late. Devices connected through IoT can communicate better and integrate various systems across a city or place.

Wastewater Treatment

AI can be used to reduce pollutants in the water which in turn decreases water contamination and scarcity of clean water. AI can be leveraged to detect the amount and composition of toxic contaminants since AI works on optics, which can increase the efficiency of waste management systems. Water quality can be continuously monitored and it is possible to get real-time data on the quality through machine learning and big data. Neural networks and IoT will reduce the energy costs which otherwise increases when using conventional methods.

Digital Water

AI can make the process of water management easier with data analytics, regression models, and algorithms. These cutting-edge technologies help in building efficient water systems and networks. AI can be used to build water plants and to get the status of water resources. Water managers and government bodies can use AI to build a smart water system that can build efficient infrastructure for water management and can adapt to changing conditions. These systems will be cost-effective and sustainable that can optimize all water management solutions and predict potential damages.

Smart Irrigation

Agriculture is the biggest water-using sector and many lands use a good portion of groundwater for irrigation purposes. Smart Irrigation will leverage AI systems to minimize the use of water and also optimize the water resources without wastage. AI systems can detect the groundwater levels and also estimate the agricultural needs to balance the usage of water by guiding sprinkler systems.

More developed precision-based AI systems can predict the weather conditions, climate, and humidity to enable better management of agriculture. The smart farms will be able to reduce leakages and analyze the soil to determine the condition of plants and their water needs using AI sensors.