Leakage detection and reduction strategies

If we speak about strategy, I do not think that the main focus is on finding technologies. First of all, we must look both at the short and the long term.
With regard to the long term, one of the best approaches is smart preventive replacement. I would say there are a couple of innovations in place for this: pipe condition assessment and risk-based replacement programmes.
Looking at the short term, the first thing to look at is assessing how much leakage one has, and where it is located. Once this has been carried out, it is the moment to speak about detection technologies. Smart meteres are turning out to be essential for this purpose, given that, combined with DMA data, can significantly improve the use of night flows to determne the existence of a leak in a DMA. Additionally, scattering several pressure sensors throughout the DMAs has proven to be useful to pinpoint the leaks, using either IA or other matehmatical models.

 

Our experience with satellite-based systems has always been negative. In fact, a Swedish company performed a case-control study where it showed that satellite-based systems were no better that a random search. I must admit that an Italian solution, Neptune, seemed to work, but we disregarded it because it required too much off too an expert human intervention

Could the colleagues with experience of the satellite leak detection methods provide some references and case study links?

I suppose David Lonergan might have some extra information to offer but I suppose the dog training is the key issue and probably the more costly. Like all methods the Dogs have to pass frequently some kind of auditing over known leakages.

Questions coming from the webinar on leakage

There appears to be good success in Italy with satellite leak detection.
The 'Water Pea' appears to be a good, fast and economical means of repairing service pipes.

How much percentage do you use traditional methods like sahara in comparison with advanced ones during your leakage detection and how effective are these?