SA Water is set to replace 375km of water mains across the state in the next four years, in a bid to stem the flow of burst and leaking pipes.

The project will cost $55 million and is expected to help to lessen impacts of water main incidents through the upgrade of water mains on several main arterial roads, including Anzac Highway, Greenhill Road and Main South Road.

SA Water is also implementing several smart technologies – such as flow, pressure and acoustic sensors – to fix water network faults before they can cause major disruption.

“While we can’t always stop bursts and leaks from occurring in our network, we can limit the impacts they have on the community with more investment in smart infrastructure,” SA Chief Executive Roch Cheroux says.  

SA Water’s battle with burst and leaking pipes has frequently made headlines.  

In December, News Limited reported that the rate of water mains faults rose last financial year to 21.4 per 100km of pipe, compared to 19.3 per 100km of pipe the previous financial year.

However, University of South Australia Dean of Research and Innovation Professor Christopher Saint told intouch last year that SA Water didn’t have a monopoly on burst and leaking pipes.

“Yes, we’ve had a lot of breakages, but Adelaide’s not really getting more than anyone else,” he said.

“There was a survey done fairly recently when they looked at about 14 utilities across Australia and SA Water Corporation were the fourth best in terms of not having pipe breakages.

“When you look at the ones that were better, it was utilities like Gold Coast Water where the infrastructure is more modern.” 

He also predicted that water utilities will be using computer programs and data to predict and reduce pipe breakages in the not-too-distant future.

Read the story here.