Attendees Flood to Specialist Open Day

Representatives from the UK, European and International water industry have attended an open day hosted by Detectronic (UK), specialists in preventing flooding and reducing pollution.

Attendees were treated to seminars led by guest speakers from the Environment Agency, the Met Office and the University of Exeter and were able to take part in workshops from Detectronic’s engineers, data analysts and site crews.

Explains Steve Woods, managing director at Detectronic: “Following our move to new premises in Colne, Lancashire earlier this year, we wanted to invite our current and prospective water industry customers to see, first hand, exactly what we have to offer, meet the team and relevant industry experts and network.

“Ian Hodkin from the Environment Agency gave an in-depth overview of emergency planning and flood risk management and gave a fascinating insight into the organisation’s role in last December’s floods. Coping with a record 25 flood warnings in one day and protecting 78,500 homes on the East coast from flooding were just two of Ian’s talking points!”

Continues Steve: “William Wheeler who worked at the Met Office for over 40 years then gave an entertaining talk on building the National Weather Radar Network, its advantages for water companies in predicting rainfall and taught us all there’s much more to rain than meets the eye.

“Finally, Dr Michele Romano from the University of Exeter shared his work on how water companies can prevent leaks and bursts using a methodology – Smart Monitoring of Pipe Networks – he has developed to deliver timely detection. Over 3,300 million litres of water are lost every day in the UK water industry due to leaks and bursts so prevention offers substantial operational savings and customer benefits for water companies.”

Following a hog roast lunch, guests took part in various workshops led by Detectronic personnel. These included a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of ultrasonic level sensors, new innovation in product design and an introduction to Detec DataPro, Detectronic’s data analysis and reporting system that enables water companies to monitor their networks in real-time and prevent incidents from occurring.

Concludes Steve: “By sharing best practice and working together in partnership with water companies, it’s our aim to help prevent flooding, reduce pollution and improve rivers and bathing water. The open day enabled us to discuss these objectives with our existing and potential customers and, most importantly, demonstrate how we do this and how they, and their customers, can benefit - it was a huge success.”