A UC Riverside-led study has found that a smartphone app that tracks household water use and alerts users to leaks or excessive consumption offers a promising tool for helping California water agencies meet state-mandated conservation goals.
It takes a lot of pipelines to get water to all of San Diego County’s nearly three-and-a-half-million people. This story is about large-diameter pipelines. Three hundred eight miles of those big pipes run all through the county, delivering water to the San Diego County Water Authority and its 23 member agencies.
As part of its preventive maintenance program to safeguard its water supply and reduce water loss, the Otay Water District is conducting leak inspections of its pipeline system. Leak detection and repair programs save water by ensuring water system integrity. The District uses state-of-the-art equipment to inspect its water distribution system for leaks in pipelines, meters, and valves. The equipment is designed to “listen” for leaks and can pinpoint the location of even the smallest water leak. Once identified, crews will schedule the needed repairs.
Across the United States, underground labyrinths of leaky pipes lose more than a trillion gallons of water a year — and the problem is mirrored around the world.
“It’s a huge problem, especially in the cities,” said Daniel Tartakovsky, a professor of energy resources engineering at Stanford University in California. Tartakovsky and his former student Abdulrahman Alawadhi from the University of California, San Diego have proposed a way to improve a traditional method of detecting these leaks.
