UKWIR seeks research partners for 13 projects

UKWIR, the UK Water Industry Research body, has invited the sector to get involved in 13 innovation projects selected by its industry members to address major shared challenges.

It unveiled the projects its members voted to see delivered over the coming year 2022/23 based on UKWIR’s five Big Questions, exploring wastewater, leakage, carbon and zero waste, as well as research to enhance diversity, equality and inclusion in the water industry.

Steve Kaye, UKWIR chief executive, said “We’re hoping for expressions of interest from partners new and old, of all sizes. Limited diversity in thought means we miss out on the new, innovative ideas we need to meet the big challenges we face.”

Wastewater projects include:

• Understanding the long-term costs and wider benefits of surface water removal and sustainable drainage systems (SuDS)
• Treatment options for storm overflows
• Quantifying, managing, and communicating the differences in storm overflow spill data between event duration monitoring (EDM) outputs and hydraulic model predictions
• Modelling sewer inlet capacity restrictions
• Developing what has been learnt from customer behaviour change campaigns

Projects under the zero leakage and zero interruptions Big Questions include:

• Assessing leakage levels on new polyethylene networks
• Update on non-acoustic leak detection and location
• Identifying the root causes of failures that lead to interruptions

The carbon and zero waste projects aim to understand emissions from wastewater operations as well as maximising the potential for carbon sequestration and supporting the move away from fossil fuels. They will include:

• Assessing air pollutant emission across wastewater operations
• Biosolids to land – carbon emissions and carbon capture
• Integrating and producing hydrogen

Expressions of interest to deliver research on these projects are invited until 8 April.