How smart sewers are helping to create healthier and safer cities
This article is also available here in Spanish.

How smart sewers are helping to create healthier and safer cities

My list

Autor | M. Martínez Euklidiadas

Although often underrated, sewage systems are one of Man’s inventions that had an enormous impact in terms of health. Sewer systems prevent diseases and unpleasant situations such as the event that occurred in 16th century London and known as the Great Stink. Together with the toilet, the urban sewer is often referred to as Man’s best invention, and with good reason. The smart sewer will be the next great health iteration.

What is a smart sewer?

A smart wastewater network is one that uses sensors, automatism and technological processes that provide substantial improvements compared with prior processes. One of the existing and most interesting examples is the installation of COVID-19 sensors in the subsoil to analyze RNA concentrations and to prevent, in good time, for example, outbreaks of coronavirus. This is already being used in numerous cities.

Sewage networks that prevent overflows

By using sensors, data analysis and state-of-the-art infrastructures, places such as the counties of Louisville and Jefferson or the city of Cincinnati in the United States have improved their sewer system, applying real-time control combined with a weather forecast.

These combined tools predict the collapse of the infrastructure and can be used to prevent wastewater overflows. Sewage overflows can have serious health impacts.

Tideway: this is how London is preventing a second Great Stink

sewers 2*One of the tunnel excavators on the Tideway project. It is able to tunnel and install the walls of the tunnel.

A world-famous project given its size, is the substantial refurbishment of London’s sewer system, which dated back to 1860 and would collapse with great ease. Tideway is the project designed to create a smarter sewage infrastructure for the city.

Some of the largest tunnelling machines have been used to achieve this and enormous challenges have had to be overcome. London has complex layers of sediments. In fact, a significant part of the innovation of this smart sewage system stems from the construction phase.

Smart sewers to catch rats

The presence of rats in urban sewer systems is a major problem. The heat, the availability of food and lack of predators make sewers the ideal place for them to live. For centuries, cities around the world have been tackling the problem and they are still doing so today.

However, there are devices capable of notably reducing rat populations, with smart traps that capture all the rodents that enter the tunnel. With pilot tests in cities such as Sant Cugat del Vallès or Portland, they appear to be quite successful. Reducing rat populations is essential to improve sanitation.

Singapore: recovering drinking water

The city-state of Singapore has always had a problem with its water supply. So much so that it is now totally dependent on Malaysia. With an increasingly tense contract with this neighboring state, they have been working on a strategy for the past few decades that enables them to recycle water.

Through connections with the sewer system and an extensive and technological purifying network, drinking water can be extracted from wastewater. So much so that the trademark water exceeds the requirements of the EPA and the WHO, and is better than tap water.

Different cities have diverse ways of tackling their own challenges with water and waste. Cities battered by floods focus on planning systems and those that do not have sources of drinking water, focus on recycling.

Images | Scott Rodgerson

Related content

Recommended profiles for you

IP
Isabella Pozzeti
Secretaria Nacional de Aviação Civil
Analista de Infraestrutura
DS
Djoko Subekti
Urban Consultant
Technical expert
BF
Babatunde Fajimi
SmartCity Resorts PLC
Head of Admin
DR
David Roitman
Roitman Constructora
Roitman Constructora
JC
Josep Calduch
Diputació de Barcelona
Enginyer Vies Blaves
NH
Nafez Husseini
CCC
Strategic Advisor to the Chairman on Digital Transformation & Innovation
DM
davide minniti
Atkins
International Urbanism Lead
AS
Anastasiia Shunina
SPC Technovotum, ltd
GR manager
DA
Dyllan Alvarado
student
Student
TK
Tajendar Kalra
Valka Care and Services Pvt Ltd
As a Manging Dirctor of Company responsible for all business operations and business development.
NS
Nadia Soultanova
Urban Impact Ventures
Head of Urban Network
AA
Ardian Wijayanto Ardian
Lippo Malls Indonesia
Supervisor Engineer
TC
Tom Israel Carumba
Architect Tom Israel Carumba
Principal Architect
Eriselda Çobo
Albanian Prime Minister's Office
National Coordinator of Strategic Projects
CM
Christian Maetz
AT&T Global Business Solutions
Business Development IoT EMEA
FR
Francis Rivera
Sorbonne University I
Postgraduate Student in Economics and Urban Planning
MA
Mathias sloth andersen Andersen
Grundfos
Strategist in Ecosystems and Partnerships
PP
Pedro Evelio Pacheco Bustamante
Constructora VialDisevsa c.a
Gerente técnico
PZ
Patricio Zambrano-Barragán
Inter-American Development Bank
Senior Specialist, Housing and Urban Development
JF
Jess Ferna
Estudiante
Ux designer