An online dialogue on smart water infrastructure, hosted by ESI Africa and Water Security Africa, underlined that while the technology exists, the successful implementation of smart water systems hinges on addressing critical issues related to policy, financing, and collaboration.
Recognising smart water infrastructure as a cornerstone of climate resilience, operational efficiency, and sustainable service delivery is growing. However, while the benefits are clear, such as reducing non-revenue water and enabling predictive maintenance, significant barriers still hinder widespread adoption.
Views from industry leaders Bobbi Harris (Smart Water Smart City, US), Boitumelo Matshediso (Talbot, South Africa) and Sherif Kafafi (Meter Technology Company, Saudi Arabia) reveal that overcoming these challenges will require a mix of policy reform, innovative financing, skills development and collaborative partnerships.
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Procurement and Innovation: Moving beyond lowest-cost thinking
Some of the most significant barriers to the widespread adoption of smart water infrastructure are not technological, but rather institutional and financial. Matshediso highlighted that existing procurement systems often prioritise the lowest initial cost over the total lifecycle value of a solution.
This mindset, she argued, often pushes digital infrastructure solutions to the back burner, despite their long-term benefits in terms of efficiency and resilience. Similarly, she noted that rigid procurement rules frequently hinder innovation, as they require time-consuming tender processes even when a proven, specialised solution is available.
Another hurdle to overcome is tariff structures. According to Matshediso, many utilities operate under regulated tariffs that “don’t reflect the cost of water service delivery”. This disconnect makes it difficult for utilities to build a robust business case for smart infrastructure investments, even when they can demonstrate operational savings.
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She emphasised the need to re-evaluate the “true value of water” and factor the substantial financial losses from service interruptions into investment decisions.
Kafafi concurred, stating that the barrier to adoption “isn’t the technology, it is financing and regulatory lack”. He pointed out that many utilities are simply not aware of the alternative financial models available to them. To address this, he raised several innovative financing models, including the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) and Metering-as-a-Service (MaaS) models.
The BOT model, for example, involves a private operator building and running the metering infrastructure for a set period (eg 10-20 years) before transferring it to the utility. This model helps utilities acquire new technology without a large upfront capital investment.
The MaaS model, prevalent in Europe, treats the meter as software, with the provider owning and maintaining the asset in exchange for a revenue share.
These models not only alleviate financial pressures but also help address the skills gap. As Harris noted, the BOT model is particularly valuable for assisting utilities to “get their skills up to what needs to take place with the new technology”.
Kafafi also warns that utilities need enabling policies that view digital water systems not as “gadget upgrades” but as strategic investments. Without procurement reform, even the most technically sound solutions can fail to progress past the proposal stage.
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Collaboration and partnerships are the engines for progress
The panellists universally agreed that collaboration is foundational to the success of innovative water projects. Matshediso described smart infrastructure as a “collaborative shift in how we design and operate our water systems,” which requires the involvement of everyone from policymakers and communities to solution providers.
She shared a powerful example from a workshop she attended, where multiple cities from around the world realised they faced many of the same challenges, even with varying levels of digital maturity.
This shared learning, she argued, is crucial for finding and implementing solutions that are already in place elsewhere.
Kafafi’s experience with MTC reinforces this point. His business model involves a deep partnership with utilities, where they spend months investigating a utility’s specific problems to develop tailored solutions.
He summarised this collaborative philosophy by stating, “global technology plus local know-how equals scalable and resilient solutions”. This approach ensures that technology is not just a one-size-fits-all product but a targeted solution for a specific problem.
Harris highlighted the importance of education within this collaborative ecosystem. She stressed that it is the industry’s responsibility to “help educate those policy makers” who may not fully grasp the intricacies and value of smart water infrastructure. This educational role is vital for fostering a supportive policy environment that enables innovation and investment.
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Planning for a water-secure future and scalability
Looking ahead, the conversation shifted to a visionary outlook on how to design smart infrastructure systems for long-term sustainability and resilience. The panellists emphasised that the future of smart water is about strategic design, focusing on building systems that are inherently adaptable and scalable.
Matshediso underscored this by stressing that scalability in Africa is not about rolling out complex systems. Instead, it’s about “designing modular, adaptable solutions that can evolve with time”. She clarified that this involves meeting clients where they are “digitally, operationally and financially”.
Ideally, she advised that the approach should avoid treating digital projects as a massive overhaul, but rather as a series of modular segments that build towards a bigger picture. This strategy also involves a strong emphasis on training and ownership, empowering local teams to interpret, manage and maintain the technology.
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Kafafi’s vision for the future revolves around “backward compatibility and data analytics“. He explained that developers worldwide are now building systems with flexible and dynamic interfaces, such as APIs (communication interfaces), which they can easily integrate with future technologies.
This forward thinking design ensures that today’s investments remain relevant tomorrow, regardless of advancements in communication protocols like 5G or 6G and beyond.
He also highlighted the transformative power of data analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI), stating that “the data that we get from the meters and the use cases that we build are all stored in software, which is the head-end system nowadays”.
These systems are now equipped with AI, which can perform sophisticated analytics to detect issues like commercial losses or fraudulent water usage with a high degree of accuracy. This shift from reactive firefighting to proactive, data-driven field response is a hallmark of truly resilient infrastructure.
Harris summarised the importance of this long-term perspective by remarking that you “can’t be a smart city if you don’t have smart water infrastructure“. This discussion demonstrates that building foundational smart water infrastructure requires a holistic approach that moves beyond technology to address the underlying policy, financial, and collaborative ecosystems.
The path to a resilient water future is one of continuous improvement, shared learning, and a collective commitment to valuing water as a critical and finite resource. ESI
