Northumbrian project fishes for water data

Northumbrian Water and its technology partners have launched the latest stage in a water quality testing project that uses drones, equipped with sensors, to collect data and digitally convey measurements to the water company.

The project, dubbed Kingfisher, is testing coastal and estuarine water quality. Northumbrian Water and its partners in the project – Makutu, RS Hydro and Skyports Drone Services – claim it is a world-first drone monitoring trial for the water industry.

The latest stage “explores how automatic and routine drone operations can support the collection of data and water quality assessments in areas that might otherwise be inaccessible.” Northumbrian said it will expand the project across the North East region of England following earlier trials in County Durham.

It will seek to demonstrate how drone operations can “enable water companies to proactively respond to issues, enhance worker safety and make it faster, cheaper and easier to gather water quality data in hard-to-reach areas.”

Northumbrian Water said it currently relies on manual collection of water samples by staff, which can be challenging or simply not possible in hard-to-reach locations. Kingfisher drone flights will be run by drone operator, Skyports Drone Services, which will deploy an aircraft capable of travelling up to 20km on a single charge. The drone’s sensors are lowered into sample points to measure a number of water quality parameters. The data is then provided to Northumbrian Water in real time.