How to Decreasing Non Revenue Water Consumption

Non-revenue water (NRW) is water a utility produces, treats and pumps but never bills: physical losses from leaking mains and service connections, plus apparent losses from metering and theft. In parts of the Gulf, where every cubic metre is desalinated at real energy cost, NRW can exceed 20 percent of production. Trenchless leak detection and rehabilitation attack the physical half of that number directly, without digging up the city to find it.

Step one: find the leaks you cannot see

Most physical losses come from leaks that never surface. In sandy soils water drains away; under paving it runs along the bedding. Our acoustic programme locates them:

• Acoustic correlators place sensors on two accessible points and calculate the leak position from the time difference of the leak noise. Accuracy is within centimetres on metallic and many plastic mains.
• Ground microphones and listening sticks confirm the point before any excavation.
• Thermal imaging reveals cold, wet zones under paving and around buried fittings.
• Pressure logging and step testing quantify losses by district metered area and prioritise where to search.

Because the network stays pressurised, the survey runs during normal operation. Lines up to 100 bar are routine for our teams.

Step two: fix without trenches

A located leak is repaired through a single small opening, or, where a section is systematically failing, the pipe is rehabilitated from the inside: tight-fit lining or CIPP for structural renewal, NSF/ANSI 61 approved epoxy for internal corrosion, Quick-Lock sleeves for localised joints. Service connections, the source of a large share of losses, are sealed from inside the main with robotic lateral repair.

Step three: keep it that way

NRW programmes fail when they are one-off campaigns. We help utilities and large estates set up district metering, periodic acoustic sweeps and CCTV condition surveys so new leaks are found while they are small. The data from each survey feeds a condition register that turns reactive repairs into a planned renewal programme.

The business case

For a desalination-fed network, each cubic metre recovered saves energy, chemicals and capacity that would otherwise go to new plant. For a mall, hotel or industrial estate, it also shows up directly on the utility bill. Applied Pipeline Services has delivered leak detection and trenchless renewal for utilities, developers and facility owners across the UAE and Saudi Arabia, including 6.8 km of National Water Company mains. If your water bill or your flow meters are telling you something is wrong, an acoustic survey will tell you where.