APPROACHES TO WATER LEAKAGE IN THE UK AND THE US

By Mitch Donnelly, FIDO Tech CEO

‘Tis the season to talk leakage. Between the North American Water Loss (NAWL) conference in Kentucky, and the UK’s Annual Leakage Conference in England, it feels like everyone is thinking about non-revenue water (NRW) at the moment.

As someone lucky enough to get a ringside seat at both events, I talked to frontline professionals on both sides of the pond and thought it might be interesting to share what I learned.

The UK and US are countries with deep cultural and historical ties but very different water sector features. One is smallish and wettish with 14 heavily regulated water utilities, a pioneering history of leak management, and a stubborn leakage rate of 19%. The other is a huge landmass of climatic extremes, with thousands of differently-resourced utilities, inconsistent regulation and similar national leakage of around 20%.

In a new short series of blogs, I’ll be sharing some observations and insights from my time in Louisville and Birmingham and looking at what unites, divides and may lie ahead for our two sectors.

Same Challenge, Different Contexts

Some wit once described the UK and US are ‘two countries divided by a common language’, But when it comes to leakage, things like pressure issues, aging infrastructure and freeze-thaw cycles are a major headache for both. Just last winter, a sudden freeze in England caused a massive spike in burst pipes leading to an an extra 200,000 cubic meters per hour of leakage as frozen pipes thawed.

On the other hand, prolonged droughts like the American Southwest’s so-called megadrought leave both regions facing prolonged water stress.

Although the approach to managing leakage is shaped by each market’s structure and regulatory environment, it was evident at both conferences that technology and innovation are front and center in the fight against water loss.

Tools like acoustic leak detectors, advanced sensors, data analytics, and AI-driven software were hot topics in Louisville just as they were in Birmingham. However, the appetite for and adoption of these solutions can vary markedly between the two countries. Let’s break down the contrasts.

The UK Approach: Regulation, DMAs, & Pressure Management

In the UK, leakage reduction has been a top priority for decades – not just a business goal but a regulatory mandate. Since the industry’s privatization in 1989, UK water companies have cut leakage by about 41%Even so, roughly a fifth of the water running through the network is lost to leaks, and regulators are demanding continuous improvement.

The UK’s economic regulator for water (Ofwat) sets strict performance commitments for leakage in each 5-year asset management period. This regulatory drive has shaped a very proactive, engineering-driven approach to leakage, which I’ll cover in more detail in a future blog. These include:

  • District Metered Areas (DMAs) –the practice of subdividing networks into DMAs was pioneered in the UK in the 1980s allowing accurate measurement of water losses.
  • Pressure Management (PRVs) – Another hallmark of UK leakage control, aggressive pressure management is a tried and tested way of reducing leak volumes and addressing a notorious cause of pipe bursts.
  • Active Leakage Control (ALC) – proactively looking for and reducing leakage through a range of actions from data-driven monitoring to proactive leakage investigations and repairs is a long-established culture.

 

All these efforts have made the UK a leader in leakage management methodology. But they’re not without challenges. Aging infrastructure is a ticking time bomb. And the combination of  freeze-thaw cycles and more frequent drier, hotter weather further stresses the system, making leakage reduction even more critical.  In short, the UK is simultaneously trying to drive leakage ever lower while external factors push back in the opposite direction.

Another observation from the UK side is that while there’s a rich array of new tech solutions (from acoustic loggers and satellite leak detection to AI analytics), the procurement and adoption processes can be slow. The industry’s structure tends towards formal procurement cycles, trials, and proof-of-concept stages, which sometimes don’t reflect the urgency of the leakage problem. Anyone in the UK water industry supply chain will tell you that it can be a long journey from pitching a great new leak detection technology to seeing it deployed at scale.

The US Landscape: Fragmentation & Reactive Strategies

Across the Atlantic, the United States faces the same fundamental leakage challenge but in a very different operating environment. The U.S. water sector is highly fragmented, with more than 50,000 separate water systems and thousands of independent utilities, half of which serve fewer than 500 people. The way leakage is addressed is shaped by:

  • Varied Resources and Priorities – Many smaller utilities operate with tight budgets and limited staff. As a result, a lot of US utilities have historically taken a more reactive stance on leaks, fixing the big breaks that surface and addressing customer-reported leaks, but not actively hunting for leaks.
  • Few DMA Networks –According to industry research, the U.S. is “notoriously a non-DMA market”. Instead, utilities might rely on other methods like periodic acoustic surveys (using listening devices on hydrants to detect leaks) or newer options like satellite leak detection, rather than permanently dividing the network into hundreds of metered zones.
  • Regulatory Drivers – US water utilities do not have a single national regulator setting leakage targets. This means the push to reduce NRW often comes from utility leadership or external factors (like drought prompting conservation) more than from strict regulatory quotas. At the NAWL conference, I heard from several U.S. utility managers who genuinely want to tackle leakage but must secure funding and approval in a political environment where rate increases are tough, and other issues compete for attention.

 

That said, one interesting upside of the US landscape is that some utilities can be quite nimble in decision-making. With so many independent entities, if a utility is motivated and has budget, it can often move faster to try a new technology or approach compared to the lengthy procurement cycles in the UK. However, the flip side is that with hundreds of vendors and solutions flooding the market, these utilities sometimes struggle to identify the right technology and partner. Look out for a future blog on this subject too.

In summary, the U.S. leakage approach has been uneven: a few big progressive utilities have comprehensive water loss programs, while many smaller ones are only beginning to quantify their leakage and take first steps. The awareness is growing, though.

Technology and AI: A Common Thread, Different Pace

A striking similarity between the UK and US scenes is the proliferation of technology and AI solutions targeting leakage. At both conferences, the exhibition halls and presentations were full of high-tech promises: permanent acoustic noise loggers that “hear” leaks, satellite imagery that can spot leaking mains from space, advanced analytics to crunch AMI (smart meter) data for abnormal usage patterns, and AI-driven algorithms that claim to distinguish true leaks from background noise or transient flow changes. The good news is that the toolkits in both countries are very similar, and knowledge-sharing is strong (many vendors operate internationally, and experts often collaborate through groups like the IWA Water Loss Specialist Group).

However, while the technologies are similar, the adoption pace and scale differ. UK utilities, with their larger size and regulatory pressure, often run extensive trials and then roll out technology across their networks in a structured way. The expectation is that these tools must prove their worth in reducing leakage figures that regulators scrutinize annually. In contrast, U.S. adoption can be sporadic, a handful of utilities might dive into a cutting-edge AI solution, while others haven’t yet installed basic district metering or continuous monitoring. That said, when a U.S. utility finds something that works, they can be surprisingly agile in scaling it up because the decision is internal.

A notable trend in both countries is the interest in how AI-driven leak detection can deliver results. FIDO AI is a UK-developed technology that uses AI to analyze acoustic signals and other data to detect leaks and even estimate their size. It exemplifies the kind of tool that is gaining interest in both markets as a “simplifying tech” – essentially taking complex data and turning it into actionable leak alarms..

The prevalence of AI as a tool is unmistakable on both sides of the Atlantic. Of course, AI isn’t a magic wand; it’s only as good as the data and deployment. But its ability to make sense of vast information quickly is ideally suited to the leakage problem, where speed of response can save millions of gallons.

Conclusion: Towards a Water-Secure Future

Attending these two conferences back-to-back was an enlightening experience for me. Despite different starting points, the UK and US water sectors are increasingly learning from each other on how to combat leakage. The UK’s disciplined, regulator-driven methods offer a blueprint for systematic water loss control, while the US innovation spirit and agility can inject new ideas and speed. Both have room to improve: the UK in cutting through red tape to adopt next-gen solutions faster, and the US in building the institutional focus and expertise to deploy best practices more broadly.

Ultimately, the fight against leakage/NRW is a journey, not a one-time fix. It requires perseverance, investment, and often a bit of creativity. The very fact that thousands of professionals gathered in Kentucky and Birmingham to swap stories about leak algorithms and pressure curves shows that the water industry is mobilizing around this issue.

And that matters – because reducing water loss is not just about saving utilities money; it’s about conserving a precious resource, reducing energy and carbon (since treating and pumping lost water wastes energy), and building resilience against future water scarcity.

Join me for a future blog on what lies ahead.