Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/1106950
www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | MAY 2019 | 19 • DRONE FLIGHTS Aerial flights by drones have found many applications within the water industry, including asset inspection, pipeline surveying, and increasingly, leak detection. • Severn Trent says that it made savings of £750,000 in 2018 through the use of drones for more efficient asset inspections. The utility has partnered with commercial drone experts COPTRZ to deploy a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for use in its routine inspections of assets. Now in its second year, the approach is generating significant cost and time savings and efficiencies. • Wessex Water has a fleet of 10 UAVs fitted with thermal imaging cameras which were used extensively in the winter of 2018-9 to detect underground leaks not visible to the naked eye. The utility's in-house drone pilot, Corinne Riley, says that the drones are typically flown at sunrise because it is easier to spot leaks of warmer water when the ground is at its coldest. As well as thermal imagery, the drones offer a mapping function which allows for detailed 'before and a er' photos. • Drones have been used to monitor water quality in Scottish lochs as part of the €5 million MONOCLE project funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme. The University of Stirling, the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and researchers from European institutions collaborated on the project at Loch Leven, Kinross-shire, which explored the feasibility of using drone and other technology to measure algal concentrations, harmful algal blooms, and mineral and organic matter. • DRONE BOATS Remotely operated survey vehicles also have multiple applications when used on the surface of the water. One example is HR Wallingford's ARC-Boat, which has been used by the Environ- ment Agency to survey river, lake and shallow coastal water environments. It recently won the MSC R&D Award for Established Innovation at the South and Vale Business Awards. Peter Watchorn, Senior Surveyor in HR Wallingford's Equipment, Technology and Innovation Group, said: "We initially designed the ARC-Boat to meet the needs of the Environment Agency whose monitoring teams find the vessel an invaluable tool for surveying rivers and other water bodies. "Having a mobile platform able to deliver advance knowledge of water levels and flow provides valuable information to help to limit the effects of potentially damaging flooding events. The Environment Agency also uses the ARC-Boat – which is very environmentally-friendly - to assess the health of our rivers by helping to identify habitats suitable for fish, for example." Most surveys on water require a vessel large enough to accommodate a survey team, the marine crew and also all of the equipment that is needed for that particular survey. This is not only expensive and time-consuming, but limits access to the shallowest areas of many sites. By contrast, the ARC-Boat can be transported in a hatchback car. It requires a team of only two surveyors - one operating the vessel and the other monitoring data. A significant benefit of the ARC-Boat is that it removes personnel from harm's way, and allows data to be acquired from areas which are difficult for conventional survey cra" to access, such as under jetties and over heavily polluted water. The small size of the ARC-Boat, and the fact that it is electrically-powered, means it causes minimal disruption to the environment. Surveys have been successfully conducted in very close proximity to protected waterfowl, for example. HR Wallingford is currently developing the next generation of ARC-Boat, an even smaller and lighter version which will enable single-person operation. The award-winning ARC-Boat is an example of a floating ROV