Can Software Save Australia From Water Crisis?

A water startup appears to be conquering Australia, taking on the continent's hefty problems with water.

TaKaDu, founded six years ago, "has picked up a slew of Australian contracts, after it saved Yarra Valley Water thousands of megalitres of water and millions of dollars by installing [technology] that identifies and tracks leaks in real time," Australian Financial Review recently reported.

The Israeli company designs "software that uses mathematical algorithms to detect and prevent leaks in water pipelines," Bloomberg reported.

After Yarra Valley Water adopted the technology, other Australian companies including Sydney Water, Unitywater, and Queensland Urban Utilities began using it, as well, AFR reported.

Yarra Valley Water managing director Patrick McCafferty explained how much the technology has helped his company.

"In the last three years we've saved about 2700 megalitres of water, which is about 1100 Olympic swimming pools of water ... which has worked out to be about $5000 a day in water savings," McCafferty said, per the report. "Yarra Valley Water has reduced from about 14 per cent to 10.8 percent its water loss, and leakage is by far the most material element of this."

TaKaDu Founder and CEO Amir Peleg said the water industry is becoming more receptive to new ideas about leak detection, Reuters reported.

"The industry is changing the weight they put on software," he said, per the report. "There's a limit you can put on devices."

Water scarcity is an ongoing problem in Australia, the world's driest inhabited continent, according to the World Bank.

"In recent decades, climate change has transformed a difficult water management challenge into a water crisis. Average annual rainfall in much of the country has dropped by a third since 1980, and stayed there," the report said.

For more on water scarcity management, visit Water Online's Water Scarcity Solution Center.