Ministry of Environment works with Google to find water leaks

September 5 – New Mexico Department of Environmental Quality partners with technology giants to save water and money.

The agency announced a new initiative called Hydro Delta on Wednesday, along with Google Public Sector and Woolpert Digital Innovations, which will use satellites and artificial intelligence to identify water leaks.

“Ensuring access to clean, reliable drinking water is a priority for every state, and Hydro Delta demonstrates New Mexico’s innovative leadership in using AI to protect this critical resource,” said Brent Mitchell, vice president of go-to-market at Google Public Sector, in a press release.

Hydro Delta uses Google’s geospatial AI Earth Engine to continuously monitor key water indicators such as soil moisture, vegetation health and temperature, according to NMED. The platform finds anomalies, and NMED staff notifies New Mexico’s water systems to investigate the anomalies.

The project will cost $474,000, according to the state, and could potentially save water systems up to $154 million.

“Hydro Delta will fundamentally transform New Mexico’s drinking water supply, particularly the systems that serve rural areas of the state,” NMED Secretary James Kenney said in a statement.

Fixing water leaks is a state priority.

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham unveiled a 50-year water action plan earlier this year. The first section of the plan focuses on water conservation, and one of the immediate actions is to address water leaks, which the plan estimates are causing the loss of 40 to 70 percent of all treated drinking water in some areas of New Mexico.

The leaks are often underground and are the result of “chronic underinvestment in the water infrastructure and workforce that communities depend on for clean drinking water,” the state plan says.

Therefore, the plan calls for the use of “innovative technologies and remote sensing techniques” in 2024 to conduct a complete inventory of water losses in New Mexico.

“Thanks to the guidance of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s 50-Year Water Action Plan, our state is taking the lead in protecting our most precious resource in the face of climate impacts that threaten our water security,” Kenney said.