As the world faces an escalating water crisis, the industry can no longer afford fragmented infrastructure, Duncan Leathley, area sales director for water utility at Grundfos UK&I, explores why an integrated approach that marries high-efficiency hardware with AI-driven intelligence, is the blueprint for building a resilient global water future.

A recent report from the United Nations University has highlighted the catastrophic loss of natural capital across the world. Global Water Bankruptcy: Living Beyond Our Hydrological Means in the Post-Crisis Era issues a vital directive to urgently rethink and redesign not only global institutions, but also water infrastructure, to meet these challenges.

Addressing this threat to our most critical resource requires moving beyond treating water infrastructure challenges as a series of disconnected problems, and instead, bringing sewerage networks out of the dark by deploying technology that turns fragmented data into operational visibility. This thinking also lies behind the full integration of remote telemetry specialist Metasphere’s capabilities within the Grundfos portfolio.

Integrated solutions

Grundfos completed the acquisition of Metasphere in 2023, and by combining its global leadership in water technology with Metasphere’s industry-leading telemetry and artificial intelligence (AI) driven analytics, the company is equipping utilities in the UK and worldwide with a unified, end-to-end ecosystem.

The strategic integration is focused on creating an intelligent network capable of managing the dual pressures of rapidly scaling urban populations and wastewater infrastructure that is operating far beyond its intended lifespan. Because of this transition, Grundfos can now provide partners with a single point of contact for integrated solutions where cloud-based digital innovation meets high-efficiency pumps for seamless water and wastewater management.

My colleague Ryan Pearson, head of business development at Grundfos, says, “This integration directly addresses fragmentation, which is a major industry bottleneck. For many utilities, the smart water revolution has resulted in a patchwork of isolated systems that do not talk to each other.

“By contrast, true digital adoption means turning a fragmented network into a modern, visible system. This combined offer accelerates research and development cycles and internet-of-things (IoT) integration. Excitingly, it also leverages the company’s global footprint, de-risking large-scale digital deployments.”

Tackling alarm fatigue 

This unified approach is already delivering measurable outcomes in the field.  A recent collaborative project involving South West Water (SWW), the utility serving south-west England, Metasphere, and the Grundfos Connect digital portfolio, demonstrates how AI-driven precision can channel multiple datasets into a tool for rapid operational decision-making and environmental protection.

The project addressed the critical challenge of chronic alarm fatigue. After reaching its regulatory target for event duration monitoring (EDM) one year early, SWW was faced with 10,000 monthly alerts, 95% of which were identified as non-genuine ‘noise’.

False positives are a common challenge across the water sector. They are a drain on resources, induce operational inefficiency, and erode confidence in monitoring systems. Every false alert diverts field teams from genuine issues, leading to unnecessary system shutdowns, costly laboratory analyses, and inefficient chemical treatments.

In 2025, SWW deployed Metasphere’s analytics platform, which integrates disparate datasets, including real-time rainfall, ground saturation, and tidal data.  Combined with Grundfos Connect’s 12-hour predictive sewer-level AI, the system now successfully filters up to 9,500 phantom alerts every month. 

This deployment demonstrates that when hardware and telemetry are managed as a single, cohesive ecosystem, utilities can proactively mitigate risks and meet the outcome-based targets required by the regulator. The project was recently shortlisted for theGlobal Water Awards 2026: AI Project of the Year.

Operational resilience

“The water sector is facing a distinct combination of rapid population growth, unpredictable weather, and infrastructure operating well past its intended lifespan. When heavy rain hits, the traditional response has been to focus on building larger treatment plants or massive concrete storage tanks, but we cannot always build our way out of a capacity crisis,” adds Pearson.

“A more effective, cost-efficient approach is to use data to find unused space within our existing assets. By using platforms like Grundfos Connect to link physical hardware with predictive analysis, utilities can balance peak flows and prevent sewer overflows before they even start.”

Global water systems face increasing costs due to failures – estimated at US$200 billion annually according to research by C40 Cities, a global network of nearly 100 mayors leading the fight against the climate crisis. This integration provides a critical path forward.

For utilities, adopting this approach is a vital step toward achieving operational excellence, meeting stringent regulatory compliance targets, and ensuring long-term environmental sustainability. By leveraging data-driven insights to address infrastructure vulnerabilities, cities can better protect their resources against the rising financial and operational toll of a changing climate.

The shift towards integrated intelligence offers a scalable blueprint for the future of global water infrastructure as the sector moves from fragmented, reactive fixes toward predictive control. It allows operators to use existing network capacity more intelligently, rather than defaulting to costly, oversized physical assets. This creates the robust, self-adjusting networks that are necessary to survive and thrive in a challenging future.

By treating water infrastructure as a living, breathing ecosystem, where every pressure change, rainfall event, and asset status informs a larger, proactive strategy, operators and their partners and stakeholders can begin to reverse the trend of global water bankruptcy.