Development of a risk based approach to surface water abstraction

The project will develop a new system for surface water abstraction from catchments for potable (drinking) water supply. This system will be based on increasingly widespread catchment and environmental data from remote sensing, satellite information and catchment stakeholders to develop real time predictive models for water quality and quantity and evaluate risks to water resources. The outputs from the project will include scientific tools to address a number of ongoing environmental and societal concerns regarding the resilience of supply, ecological sustainability of water abstraction from surface waters, the rising energy cost associated with water treatment and compliance with drinking water quality legislation.The project builds on and existing collaborative partnership with Severn Trent Water (STW) and well as preliminary modelling tools previously developed in an EPSRC EngD project. The new system has significant potential to both improve the resilience and quality of water supplies, significantly improving water quality compliance, reducing environmental impact of abstraction and reducing the need for expensive and energy intensive treatment processes. In the longer term the project is scalable to other sites/companies in the UK and overseas (e.g. via GCRF opportunities).