You'd think that of all the leaks in the country, the one that pops up on the street where a professor of water systems lives would get fixed pretty quickly. But as Vanessa Speight will tell you, that's sadly not the case. "It just comes out of the pavement and runs down the road," says Prof Speight, an expert in drinking water quality at the University of Sheffield. It was roughly a year ago that she first reported the problem to her local water firm. Despite efforts to locate the source of the leak, the company has come up dry. "It's probably been six different times they've dug up the road," Prof Speight adds.

I've written a number of times previously about the drive towards smarter cities, with the Internet of Things used to monitor key infrastructure and even provide real-time repairs. One interesting project is taking place in the sewers beneath the American city of Cincinnati. The Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati (MSD) aims to develop a "smart sewer" that reduces the overflow into the cities rivers and creeks. MIT researchers are working on a similar approach, albeit their aim is to reduce leaks that result in roughly 20% of global water supplies being lost during transportation. Their system consists of a rubbery robot that looks a little bit like a badminton shuttlecock. The device is inserted into the water system, and then is carried along with the flow of water, measuring and logging as it goes.