Continuous monitoring, rapid leak detection and managed services help water companies adapt to increasingly volatile conditions.
With drought and flooding increasingly arriving in quick succession, water companies need leakage strategies that can adapt just as quickly. Here, Dineke Fischer, senior executive at Ovarro, explains why continuous network visibility, rapid leak detection and cloud-based analytics are becoming essential — and how solutions such as EnigmaREACH and managed leakage services can help utilities protect supplies and strengthen long-term resilience.
Having largely recovered from the 2025 drought, some countries have just recorded one of their driest Aprils on record — followed by the hottest day in May on record. With water scarcity remaining a long-term concern, the Environment Agency says it expects utilities “to maintain the intensity of their drought planning” year-round.
In March 2026, the Agency also warned that England was likely to experience “weather whiplash” — rapid swings between drought and flooding driven by climate change. The challenge for water companies is therefore no longer simply maintaining infrastructure, but building adaptive, flexible systems capable of responding to increasingly uncertain operating conditions.
For leakage specifically, extreme temperature changes will increase the frequency of conditions such as freeze-thaw events and prolonged dry spells, both of which can cause significant outbreaks of leaks.
The good news is that the technology to manage these scenarios rapidly and at scale already exists. It is also evolving quickly, alongside smart solutions that enable more preventative, data-driven leakage detection.
With its latest developments, Ovarro is working with water companies in the UK and worldwide on a three-pronged approach to leakage detection – 24/7 visibility, rapid detection and operational insight:
- Continuous network visibility — loggers and RTUs give operators real-time awareness of changing network conditions, helping identify anomalies before they escalate into major incidents.
- Fast, accurate leak detection — equally critical during periods of uncertainty. Advanced correlating leak loggers and hydrophones can identify even small, long-running leaks with metre-level accuracy, including on difficult plastic pipes
- Cloud-based analytics platforms — combining acoustic and flow data to prioritise repairs, reduce false positives and identify long-term trends that support proactive maintenance and climate resilience.
Ovarro’s smart monitoring and leak detection technologies help water utilities improve resilience and reduce water loss during increasingly volatile weather conditions.
One key digital development from Ovarro combines all three steps. EnigmaREACH, a lift-and-shift correlating hub. By combining a set of loggers, a single app to guide logger placement, retrieval and follow-up, plus automated analytics, EnigmaREACH reduces reliance on manual analysis to speed up the end-to-end leak detection process.
This is particularly valuable during breakout events and during drought conditions, where rapid detection of leaks is essential to protect constrained water supplies. A recent deployment in Paris demonstrates how the toolkit can support drought mitigation.
The Territorial Public Establishment Grand-Orly Seine Bièvre (EPT GOSB) is the largest territory in the Greater Paris metropolitan area. In its first French deployment, EnigmaREACH was able to cover up to 8 km of network in a single correlation shot and identified three leaks simultaneously through 60-second sounds samples.
After the first four weeks of use, during which time the loggers were moved across multiple locations, 12 points of interest (PoIs, or suspected leak locations) were raised and 10 leaks found, including long-running small leaks which had gone undetected, and leaking valves.
Managed services
Alongside hardware and software, managed services are also becoming increasingly important to water companies. In this model, specialist providers take responsibility for delivering specific outcomes rather than simply supplying equipment — for example, measurable reductions in water loss.
Ovarro has seen growing global demand for managed services, particularly in leakage detection. LeakNavigator, for example, sees Ovarro’s leakage and data specialists plan logger deployment and provide ongoing analysis, sending PoIs directly to utility field teams via an app. This frees up resource for companies to focus on repairs and preventing water loss.
The challenge for the sector is no longer whether the technology exists to meet regulatory expectations and strengthen drought resilience — but how quickly it can be adopted and deployed at scale.
To find out more about the EnigmaREACH managed leak detection system, visit Ovarro’s website.
About Ovarro
Ovarro’s technology is used throughout the world to monitor, control and manage critical and national infrastructure.
Our connected technology is always there, always on. Secure, proven, trusted; integrating seamlessly with our clients’ assets. Collecting and communicating data from some of the most remote locations and harshest environments on the planet. Enabling businesses to work smarter and more effectively.
Ovarro works with customers across water, energy, oil & gas, broadcast and transportation to help monitor, control and manage their assets.
Contact Ovarro:
Rotherside Road, Eckington, Sheffield, United Kingdom, S21 4HL
Phone: +44 (0) 1246 437580
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: www.ovarro.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/ovarro_ltd
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/ovarro
