Future-proofing water: why the supply chain is central to resilience

The water sector is facing a more demanding operating environment than at any point in recent memory. Drought across Wales and large parts of England, repeated heatwaves, stronger peak demand and growing pressure on networks have changed the resilience conversation. This is no longer simply about reducing leakage. It is about how the whole system - utilities, regulators, customers and the supply chain - responds to a more volatile climate.

The message from the Leakage and Metering Conference was clear: leakage remains critical, but it now sits within a broader challenge around demand management, data quality, customer-side losses, operational control and long-term resilience. Smart metering is increasingly strategic infrastructure, not a supporting technology. But data only creates value when it improves decisions and prompts action.

The scale of the task is significant. England is working towards a target of 110 litres per person per day by 2038, alongside demand reduction of around 37–38%. In southeast England, the sector must find approximately 830 megalitres through demand management over the next decade. Much of that depends on policy and customer behaviour, not simply engineering. If demand reduction falls short, the alternatives are often major schemes - desalination, recycling and reservoirs - which are slower and more expensive to deliver.

That makes better use of the water already in the system an urgent priority.

Smart metering has become central to this. It provides the information needed to understand consumption patterns, identify continuous flow, target potential leakage and design more effective customer interventions. The opportunities are material. Data presented at the conference suggested that 25% of homes use more than 500 litres a day, while 8% show continuous flow. In the business market, around 24% of water use registers as continuous flow. Not every instance represents leakage, but much of it may be avoidable loss or inefficient use.

Removing continuous flow can save around 30 litres per property per day before asking customers to change their normal habits. That is a powerful insight. It shifts the focus away from broad averages and toward specific locations, properties and customer groups where intervention can have the greatest effect.

For the supply chain, this creates a major opportunity - and a responsibility. Future-proofing the sector will not come from any single product or technology. It will come from bringing together accurate metering, secure connectivity, reliable sensors, asset intelligence, analytics, practical installation capability and well-designed customer engagement.

First, the supply chain can help improve data confidence. As utilities become more dependent on data, meter volume alone is not enough. Installation quality, verification, maintenance, connectivity and replacement cycles all affect whether information can be trusted. A poorly installed or poorly maintained meter can distort consumption data, undermine targeting and lead to the wrong operational decisions. Suppliers can support stronger standards across the full metering lifecycle, rather than treating installation as a one-off event.

Second, suppliers can help utilities move from reactive to predictive network management. Traditional “find and fix” approaches remain important, but they are no longer sufficient by themselves. Better data should enable companies to identify pressure issues, emerging bursts and abnormal consumption before they become service failures. Combining smart-meter data with pressure management, acoustic monitoring, flow measurement, digital twins and predictive analytics can help operators understand what is happening in real time and act earlier.

This is where resilience becomes practical. It is not simply a strategy document or a future aspiration. It is the ability to manage demand peaks, reduce stress on treatment and distribution systems, detect loss more quickly and make better operational choices under pressure.

Third, the supply chain can play a more active role in tackling customer-side leakage and high use. Many of the fastest gains may sit beyond the utility’s own network boundary. Smart data can identify continuous flow and unusually high consumption, but identifying a problem is not the same as resolving it. Members can provide the tools, services and intervention models that translate insight into action: property-level diagnostics, leak repair support, efficient fittings, targeted communications and digital customer journeys.

Customer engagement also needs to be treated as part of infrastructure delivery. The evidence is increasingly clear that customers do not necessarily respond to dashboards or large volumes of information. They respond to messages that are personal, timely, simple and relevant. Supply-chain partners with expertise in behavioural insight, digital platforms and service design can help utilities turn meter readings into clear prompts that support customers to take action.

Fourth, suppliers can help solve the delivery challenge. The final 5–10% of smart-meter rollout is often the most complex and expensive, particularly where there are rural locations, deep pits, internal access requirements, connectivity constraints, tenant issues or repeated missed appointments. Installation strategy matters as much as the technology itself. Field teams are often the public face of the water company, which means trust, communication and customer experience are operational concerns, not peripheral ones.

The sector must also maintain focus on proven operational disciplines. Pressure management still reduces leakage, lowers burst rates and helps manage network stress. The aim should not be to replace established practice with digital tools, but to make it more targeted and effective through better intelligence. Data should improve system control, not simply produce more reporting.

There is a wider point for Future Water members. The sector needs a whole-system mindset. Leakage, demand, metering, asset health, customer behaviour and resilience are now interdependent. Future Water’s supply chain can help connect these areas — bringing practical innovation to utilities, helping scale proven solutions and supporting a stronger shared evidence base for what works.

The future of water resilience will not be secured by a single intervention. It will be built through better understanding, better prioritisation and faster delivery. The technologies exist. The challenge now is to deploy them with the pace, quality and collaboration that the changing climate demands.

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