Plug the leaks to curb non-revenue water

Saving water: Water losses through burst pipes are easy enough to resolve but most of the time, they occur unseen, underground. Utilities will have to rely on new technologies to detect such leaks.

Every year, across the globe, funds running into billions are spent to mitigate non-revenue water. Yet there is no end in sight to the plentiful amount of water wasted or lost from water distribution systems before it can be used or billed.

The Malaysian water industry has long suffered from high levels of non-revenue water (NRW) – in 2012, we registered a 36.4% loss, equivalent to 5,464,000 cu m of water. The next year, NRW was 36.6%, or 5,694,000 cu m. The spike in figure is worrying, however marginal.