Key Takeaways

• Smart water technology combines sensors, connectivity, and software to monitor water systems in real time.
• It helps utilities and municipalities catch developing spills and blockages before they become costly emergencies.
• Applications span municipal utilities and smart city infrastructure.
• Choosing the right solution depends on system size, existing infrastructure, and the specific problem being solved.
• RH Borden brings this technology directly to sewer collection systems through acoustic assessments, BASINiQ sensor networks, and Manhole Virtual Models.

Smart water technology uses sensors and real-time data to monitor, manage, and protect water and wastewater systems, replacing guesswork with measurable insight.

Water systems have run the same way for decades: crews inspect on a fixed schedule, and problems get found only after they’ve already started causing damage. Smart water technology changes that timeline entirely. By putting sensors directly into the system and reading conditions continuously, utilities can catch a developing problem while it’s still small, cheap, and easy to fix. Here’s what that actually looks like in practice.

What Is Smart Water Technology?

Smart water technology refers to the sensors, connected devices, and data platforms that let water and wastewater systems be monitored and managed in real time, rather than through periodic manual checks. Instead of a crew physically inspecting a pipe or manhole on a fixed schedule, a network of sensors continuously reports on conditions like flow, pressure, or water level, sending that data somewhere it can actually be used.

What makes this “smart” isn’t just the hardware. It’s the shift in decision-making. A utility that used to react to a customer complaint about a sewer backup can instead see the warning signs building in the data days or weeks earlier. That difference, between reacting to a problem and anticipating it, is the entire value proposition of smart water technology.

Why This Matters Now

Aging infrastructure, tighter budgets, and stricter regulatory reporting requirements have pushed utilities to look for ways to do more with the crews and funding they already have. Smart water technology doesn’t replace field crews. It tells them where to go first.

How Does Smart Water Technology Work?

At its core, a smart water system has three layers working together: sensors that collect data, a network that transmits it, and software that turns raw numbers into decisions.

Sensors and Data Collection

Sensors are placed at key points in a system, a manhole, a pipe segment, a treatment plant intake, and continuously measure conditions like flow rate, water level, pressure, or acoustic signals. Some systems check conditions constantly; others take rapid readings on a set interval, which is often enough to catch a developing problem long before it becomes visible at the surface.

Connectivity and Analysis

That data travels, often wirelessly, to a central platform where software compares it against expected baselines. When a segment behaves differently than history suggests it should, the system flags it. A human still makes the final call, but they’re making it with real evidence instead of a hunch.

Key Benefits of Smart Water Management

The appeal of smart water management comes down to a handful of concrete outcomes utilities actually feel in their budgets and their service quality.

Efficiency is the most immediate one. Crews stop spending days inspecting pipe that’s performing fine and start spending that time on the segments the data actually flags as high-risk. That’s a direct cost saving, not a theoretical one.

Sustainability follows closely behind. Less non-revenue water lost to infiltration, less energy spent treating water that never should have entered the system in the first place, and less strain on aging infrastructure all add up over a full budget cycle.

There’s also a trust benefit worth noting. When a utility can show a city council exactly what data drove a repair decision, that’s a very different conversation than justifying a repair based on age or a hunch.

Real-Time Monitoring and Spill Prevention

If there’s one capability that tends to justify the entire investment on its own, it’s real-time detection of developing spills and infiltration. A source of inflow and infiltration entering a sewer system during storms can go unnoticed for months using traditional inspection schedules. By the time it’s found the old way, it may have already caused a sanitary sewer overflow (SSO), a fine, or costly emergency repair work.

Continuous sensor monitoring changes that timeline. A basin-wide network of sensors can narrow a suspected source down to a few hundred feet after just one or two rain events, turning a system-wide mystery into a short, prioritized list a crew can actually act on.

Applications for Municipal Utilities and Smart Cities

Municipal Utilities

For cities and municipal utilities, smart water technology means real-time visibility into collection systems that would otherwise rely on infrequent manual inspection, exactly the gap it was built to close.

Smart Cities

At the city-wide level, smart water data feeds into broader infrastructure planning, helping planners see how water systems, stormwater, and aging pipe networks interact across an entire service area rather than one segment at a time.

How to Choose the Right Smart Water Solution

Not every utility needs the same starting point. A system with a long history of sanitary sewer overflows benefits most from basin-wide infiltration detection first. A system more concerned with pipe condition may get more immediate value from a cleaning-priority screening tool instead.

The right questions to ask are practical ones: What problem is costing the most right now? Does the technology need to work with reporting systems already in place? And can the vendor show a real track record, not just a product sheet?

The Future of Smart Water Technology

The next stage of smart water technology isn’t just more sensors, it’s better prioritization. As more utilities adopt continuous monitoring, the systems are getting better at telling operators not just what’s happening, but what to actually do about it first. Combined with digital twin modeling of infrastructure assets like manholes, utilities are moving toward a future where an entire collection system’s condition can be assessed and prioritized from a desk, before a single truck rolls out.

Bringing Smart Water Technology to Your Collection System

Smart water technology, at its core, is about replacing assumptions with evidence. Whether the goal is preventing an SSO before it happens, prioritizing which pipes actually need attention, or simply giving a city council real data behind a budget request, the same principle holds: better information leads to better maintenance decisions.

RH Borden is a trusted wastewater technology provider based in Lehi, Utah, serving municipalities across the United States with advanced, data-driven sewer system maintenance solutions. We specialize in helping cities transition from traditional, labor-intensive maintenance to smarter, technology-enabled infrastructure management.

At RH Borden, we deliver innovative wastewater solutions including Acoustic Assessments using SL-RAT technology to quickly identify cleaning priorities, BASINiQ sensor networks for detecting inflow and infiltration (I&I) sources across sewer basins, and Manhole Virtual Models (MVM) that create digital twins of infrastructure assets to assess condition and guide rehabilitation decisions. Our solutions are designed to improve efficiency, reduce unnecessary maintenance costs, and extend the life of wastewater infrastructure through accurate, actionable data-driven insights.

Contact us today at 385-510-3223 to see what smart water technology could look like for your system.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is smart water technology expensive to implement? 

Costs vary by system size and scope, but most utilities find the technology pays for itself through fewer emergency repairs and less wasted cleaning, rather than adding a net new expense.

How is smart water technology different from traditional water meters or manual monitoring? 

Traditional monitoring relies on scheduled inspections or periodic meter readings. Smart water technology reports continuously, so problems surface in the data long before a crew would have found them on a routine visit.

Is smart water technology only practical for large utilities, or can smaller municipalities benefit too? 

Smaller systems often see faster, more visible results, since a single sensor deployment can cover a much larger share of a small system’s total infrastructure.

How much maintenance does a smart water system require after installation? 

Most sensor networks are built for long-term, low-maintenance field deployment, with periodic checks rather than constant hands-on servicing.

Can smart water technology integrate with the systems and software my utility already uses? 

Reputable providers design their platforms to work alongside existing GIS and asset