AI Solution Helps Detect Extraneous Water Causes for Austrian Municipality

Each year, approximately 380 billion cubic meters of wastewater are generated worldwide. As populations grow, water consumption increases, living standards rise and economies expand, this figure is expected to climb even further. The rising wastewater volumes translate to higher investments needed for modernizing and renewing treatment plants; thus, reducing extraneous water in sewage networks is a key strategy for keeping the expenses manageable. Two years ago, Pipelife partnered with the green tech startup Pluvion to create an innovative AI-powered wastewater management solution for Schrick Municipality, Austria, pinpointing the causes of high extraneous water volume in its network.

The Importance of Real-Time Monitoring in Detecting Extraneous Water

Extraneous water refers to any water that has entered the sewer system but doesn’t belong there. This includes groundwater infiltrating through leaks, illegally discharged drainage water, or rainwater seeping into sewers through manholes.

Around 380 billion cubic meters of wastewater are produced globally every year — five times the volume of Niagara Falls. This figure is projected to rise by 24% by 2030 and 51% by 2050, making it even more critical to identify extraneous water that shouldn’t be reaching treatment plants. Apart from driving up treatment costs, high amounts of extraneous water can also lead to sewage overflows, posing risks to the environment and public health.

The proposal for the EU’s recast Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (UWWTD) mandates municipalities in Member States to limit overflows from the sewer system to a maximum of 2% of the annual pollution load during dry weather. Adopting modern technologies, such as AI, can help municipalities meet this stringent target.

The Endless Loop: How Extraneous Water Drives up Wastewater Management Costs

Continuous monitoring enables municipalities to track their sewer networks year-round and identify seasonal changes. To assess the importance of measuring and locating extraneous water in sewage systems, it is essential to understand the fundamentals.

As wastewater enters the sewer system, it is carried to a treatment facility. For efficient treatment, the sewage must be at a specific concentration. When extraneous water, such as groundwater or rainwater, infiltrates the system, treatment costs rise significantly. This occurs because treating the additional volume of water requires higher amounts of treatment chemicals and more energy.

You Can Only Improve What You Can Measure

In many cases, municipalities are not aware of the amount of money going down the drain through their wastewater networks each year.

The model below illustrates how the presence of extraneous water can affect the wastewater management costs for a municipality of 1,100 inhabitants, assuming an average daily wastewater production of 120 liters per person and a treatment cost of 3.88 euros per cubic meter. Under these conditions, every 5% increase in extraneous water volume would add 9,350 euros to annual wastewater treatment costs. The expenses would be even greater for larger municipalities or those with higher wastewater treatment costs.

The Future of AI and Its Role in Smart Water Management

When it comes to wastewater management and smart water usage, digitalization is one of the most efficient solutions for creating a more resilient water infrastructure. Smart solutions, including AI-driven technologies, allow municipalities to identify and tackle issues in their infrastructure networks before large-scale problems can arise.

Nowadays, the data obtained by smart wastewater management solutions are used to:

• monitor the network status,
• detect potential pollution events and volumes,
• adapt to weather extremes, such as flooding and droughts,
• improve network operation by predictive maintenance,
• reduce human errors with automated controls.

“AI-driven monitoring of extraneous water empowers municipalities to proactively detect and address water leaks, infiltration and inefficiencies in real time, reducing costs, conserving resources and ensuring the long-term sustainability of their water infrastructure,” says Rameez Shah, Smart Business Developer at Pipelife Austria.

Pipelife Partners With Pluvion to Develop an Advanced Wastewater Solution

In 2022, Pipelife and Pluvion teamed up to create a customized wastewater monitoring solution for Schrick Municipality in Austria. In 2023, Pipelife, cooperating with Schrick’s engineering office, installed nine sensor suites in manholes throughout the municipal network. Combining Pipelife’s Smart Level Sensor and Smart Stormwater Monitoring solutions with Pluvion’s software allowed for assessing the probability of extraneous water presence in the monitored areas.

“Almost every municipality we talk to has an extraneous water problem, sometimes even as high as 90%. By combining sensor-based data from the sewer network with our AI solutions, we can make the water industry more efficient and sustainable,” states Phillip Grimm, Founder and CEO of Pluvion.

The pilot project in Austria, which concluded in November 2024, successfully identified the causes of extraneous water in Schrick’s sewer system. A digital heatmap was created, pinpointing critically affected areas, leading to a targeted CCTV inspection that uncovered illegal connections as the source of the extraneous water.

The remote monitoring and asset management solution developed by Pipelife and Pluvion allowed Schrick Municipality to effectively address the issue, reducing the volume of extraneous water in its network, optimizing treatment costs and the overall network efficiency.