UKWIR unveils leak detection guide update

UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR) has included a guide to best practice in an update of its 2016 review into non-acoustic methods of leak detection.

The review update – carried out in partnership with software firm Ovarro, “identifies successful applications, potential deployment pitfalls and best practice guidance for trials.” And it includes investigations into emerging and novel techniques with “a roadmap of future tools that may become available.”

Its key recommendations are for water companies to follow as rigorous and systematic a process as possible and “to be aware of the weaknesses in their current leakage detection technologies, so they can target trials on these weaknesses rather than seeking general solutions.”

The existing non-acoustic methods summarised in the report are: satellite and radar-based techniques, pressure transients, in-pipe survey devices, thermal imaging with handheld devices and drones, temperature monitoring, sniffer dog detection, fibre optics and gas detection.