An interdisciplinary team of engineers across two universities and industry has been awarded a major grant of £650,000 to develop new water quality sensing technology which will be able to continuously monitor river health upstream and downstream of storm sewer overflows.
Building on a well established partnership between the University of Sheffield and City St George’s, University of London, supported by Detectronic, a UK manufacturer of ATEX-certified wastewater monitoring equipment and winner of the King’s Award for Innovation, this collaboration is set to transform how water pollution is surveyed in UK water systems.
The Knowledge Transfer Partnership is the best vehicle to support the focus on the development, testing and potential commercialisation of the new technology. River water quality will be continuously monitored at multiple points along the watercourse, checking important signs of river health like, temperature, oxygen levels, ammonia and other pollutants.
The project directly supports Defra’s 2023 Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan (SODRP) and reaching the objective will significantly enhance biodiversity, reduce public health risks and ultimately improve the public's enjoyment of the natural environment.
Dr James Shucksmith, Senior Lecturer in Water Engineering at Sheffield, said: “This is an exciting technology which will deliver a much more detailed, extensive and continuous understanding of water pollution in our rivers and surface waters than is currently possible. This project will support extensive development, testing and validation of the sensor system in state of the art laboratory testing facilities. Roll out of the technology is anticipated to start in 2027 with trials in multiple water companies.”
Rev’d Dave Walker, Global Future Trends Director, said: “The team will apply their different expertise and knowledge in the design, fabrication and implementation of sensor systems to meet a visible, nationally significant demand. This solves a complex challenge for the business partner using unfamiliar technology that isn’t currently available in the UK water sector.”
Professor of Sensor Engineering Tong Sun from City St George’s said: “This grant will benefit from the synergy of the skills in innovative sensor technology at City St George’s and water quality monitoring at Sheffield to support creating new solutions with Detectronic, who have a rich history of facilitating real time monitoring and management wastewater flows to enable regulatory and environmental compliance, improve process efficiencies, prevent flooding and reduce pollution – all to benefit the UK’s citizens in this critical area.”