Israeli firms aim to plug world's water leaks

By Ari Rabinovitch

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Outside a small town near Tel Aviv, a pilotless drone aircraft with a three-foot (1-meter) wingspan collects data from hundreds of gauges.

A single technician with a laptop monitors the flight from the ground and receives an instant picture of the town's system, including, he says, a house with a leaky toilet.

That may seem petty, but the plane that reads water meters -- as well as a tiny turbine that can generate electricity from within water pipes -- are among technologies Israeli companies are developing to help save billions of dollars in water lost from leaky pipes.

The systems are part of a drive for export orders as rising populations and massive urbanization boost demand for fresh water, and experts say pipe leakage is one of the biggest problems facing the world today.

A World Bank study in 2006 showed water lost in the system before it reaches the customer -- known as "non-revenue water" -- costs utilities at least $14 billion worldwide every year, largely from leaky pipes and poor maintenance.

Most of the loss is in developing countries: 12 billion gallons (45 million cubic meters) of water are lost daily, enough to serve nearly 200 million people, the study said.

The problem is also endemic in industrialized countries. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates losses from the U.S. water distribution system cost the country $2.6 billion a year.

"Israel is one of the leading countries in initiative ideas to reduce non-revenue water and losses," said Stuart Hamilton, a task force member of the International Water Association (IWA). His group measures performance at the world's utilities.

Israel is two-thirds desert, and water concerns affect decision-making at the highest levels. For decades, companies here have developed water technologies more for domestic use than for foreign markets.

But seeing an opportunity to penetrate markets abroad, it set a goal of exporting $2.5 billion annually in water technology by 2011, said the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

FLY-BY SYSTEM

Several firms globally offer complete leak detection services, from telephone hotlines to teams that walk the street at night with acoustic leakage detection devices, said Philippe Marin, the World Bank's senior water and sanitation specialist.

Companies such as France's Suez Environnement and Veolia Environnement run through such routines when taking over utilities.

Companies do not always need to replace large tracts of piping if they can pinpoint leaks, said Dewi Rogers, who runs Italian water-loss management consultancy firm DEWI Srl.

One key to detecting and then plugging leaks is getting real-time data from water meters in the field. For years, monitoring was done by a person stopping by each meter and jotting down the information. This can take months.