Weather in Water Tech

One of the major factors in water planning and management - along with seasonality - is weather. One of the most important factors for AI models to be trained on in water technology is weather trends.

I wanted to deep-dive a bit deeper and to explore a bit more what weather means in water tech.

The three main overview areas that I have for weather in water planning are:

• Temperature
• Precipitation
• Humidity and Wind

Variations in temperature affect water evaporation rates and water consumption.

Variations in precipitation affect water availability and supply, specifically through rain or snowfall. And variations in humidity and wind can, surprisingly, also affect evaporation and water loss.

Again, temperature is very much linked with seasonality as we are looking at people using private and public pools, watering their plants and lawns and gardens, showering more often and using water to cool down.

In turn, ice cold water can freeze and can cause pipes to burst; and the cold weather can I suppose sometimes cause people to shower more and etc. to warm up.

However, if it rains heavily, then people are less likely to need to water their gardens or do things like wash their cars. Interestingly, excessively heavy ran is also bad for wastewater treatment - excessive rainfall can cause sewers to overflow - and water treatment plants can also be overloaded too, if there is excessive rainfall. Low humidity can cause excessive evaporation and increase the need for irrigation. If the weather is excessively sunny then this can lead to extra water consumption too.

Extreme weather can also lead to damage to major water infrastructure equipment e.g. like dams.

Broader Weather Patterns

AI may also consider broader weather patterns. Forecasts of prolonged hot weather can be predictions of demand surges.