They're the government body behind the dreaded hosepipe bans. But the Environment Agency have come up with another way to save water – by deleting old emails. Historic messages and photos are stored in vast data centres which consume so much energy they require large amounts of water to keep cool. Now, the public is being urged to'play their part' to help reduce pressure on our water systems by having an email clear–out. The advice was issued as Britain endures its fourth heatwave of the summer. Five areas of England are currently officially in drought, with six more in'prolonged dry weather'.

Uber Eats uses four-wheeled robots to handle the final stretch of food delivery. Fixing underground water pipes usually means digging up roads and sidewalks -- a process that's disruptive and expensive. However, researchers at the University of Sheffield in the U.K. are working on a different approach. They've developed small robots called "Pipebots" that can travel inside water pipes to find and potentially repair leaks, all without any excavation. Sign up for my FREE CyberGuy Report Get my best tech tips, urgent security alerts, and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox.

--Digital twins (DTs) help improve real-time monitoring and decision-making in water distribution systems. However, their connectivity makes them easy targets for cyberattacks such as scanning, denial-of-service (DoS), and unauthorized access. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that manage these systems often do not have enough budget or staff to build strong cybersecurity teams. T o solve this problem, we present a Virtual Cybersecurity Department (VCD), an affordable and automated framework designed for SMEs. The VCD uses open-source tools like Zabbix for real-time monitoring, Suricata for network intrusion detection, Fail2Ban to block repeated login attempts, and simple firewall settings. T o improve threat detection, we also add a machine-learning-based IDS trained on the OD-IDS2022 dataset using an improved ensemble model. Our solution gives SMEs a practical and efficient way to secure water systems using low-cost and easy-to-manage tools.

Enhancing Network Security Management in Water Systems using FM-based Attack Attribution Aleksandar Avdalovi c, Joseph Khoury, Ahmad Taha, Elias Bou-Harb Division of Computer Science and Engineering, Louisiana State University, USA Civil and Environmental Engineering, V anderbilt University, USA Abstract --Water systems are vital components of modern infrastructure, yet they are increasingly susceptible to sophisticated cyber attacks with potentially dire consequences on public health and safety. While state-of-the-art machine learning techniques effectively detect anomalies, contemporary model-agnostic attack attribution methods using LIME, SHAP, and LEMNA are deemed impractical for large-scale, interdependent water systems. This is due to the intricate interconnectivity and dynamic interactions that define these complex environments. Such methods primarily emphasize individual feature importance while falling short of addressing the crucial sensor-actuator interactions in water systems, which limits their effectiveness in identifying root cause attacks. T o this end, we propose a novel model-agnostic Factorization Machines (FM)-based approach that capitalizes on water system sensor-actuator interactions to provide granular explanations and attributions for cyber attacks. For instance, an anomaly in an actuator pump activity can be attributed to a top root cause attack candidates, a list of water pressure sensors, which is derived from the underlying linear and quadratic effects captured by our approach. In multi-feature cyber attack scenarios involving intricate sensor-actuator interactions, our FM-based attack attribution method effectively ranks attack root causes, achieving approximately 20% average improvement over SHAP and LEMNA. Additionally, our approach maintains strong performance in single-feature attack scenarios, demonstrating versatility across different types of cyber attacks. Notably, our approach maintains a low computational overhead equating to an O(n) time complexity, making it suitable for real-time applications in critical water system infrastructure. Our work underscores the importance of modeling feature interactions in water systems, offering a robust tool for operators to diagnose and mitigate root cause attacks more effectively. I NTRODUCTION W ATER systems at the physical layer comprise critical components such as flow and pressure sensors, and actuators, which are monitored and controlled by cyber layer systems to ensure a safe and reliable water supply for both communities and industries.

A Japanese government panel agreed Thursday to promote digital transformation to tackle the aging of public infrastructure, including water supply and sewage systems. This followed a high-profile road collapse incident in Yashio, Saitama Prefecture, last month, which is believed to have been caused by a broken sewage pipe. At a meeting of the digital administrative and fiscal reform panel, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who heads the group, instructed related officials to urgently work on the use of digital technologies for water and sewage systems to ensure that their operations by local governments are sustainable. He called for introducing such technologies within about three years, against the previous deadline of five years. For water and sewage systems, satellites and artificial intelligence systems will be used to collect and analyze data on temperature, geology and other factors to identify areas where water leaks may occur.

Costly water losses in municipal water systems could be significantly reduced using sensors and new artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Developed by researchers at the University of Waterloo in collaboration with industry partners, the technology has the potential to detect even small leaks in pipes.It combines sophisticated signal processing techniques and AI software to identify telltale signs of leaks carried via sound in water pipes. The acoustic signatures are recorded by hydrophone sensors that can be easily and inexpensively installed in existing fire hydrants without excavation or taking them out of service. "This would allow cities to use their resources for maintenance and repairs much more effectively," said lead researcher Roya Cody, a civil engineering Ph.D. candidate at Waterloo. "They could be more proactive as opposed to reactive."

History repeats itself, but it doesn't have to. I was inspired to launch my startup, Varuna, when Austin Water released its first-ever boil water warning in 2018 -- a moment eerily similar to the massive winter storm in Texas just a few weeks ago. Because the water utility companies didn't have enough real-time data to measure water quality in individual neighborhoods, they took the blanket approach of asking all of the city's 950,000 residents to boil any water ingested through drinking or cooking. After several days of substantially reducing water usage -- and seeing more than 625,000 plastic bottles of water handed out across the city -- I set out to find a solution. A systems engineer by trade and a problem-solver by nature, I repurposed our dishwasher's sensor to create my first water-quality measurement device.

When a fifth of the people living in the city of Wakayama faced a three-day water stoppage last month to fix a 60-year-old pipe network, they rushed to get ready, only to learn that the repairs could be made without a shutdown. Some 3,000 complaints were filed with city officials, who said they had no way of knowing until they dug up the pipes. Cities across the world are facing similar challenges in dealing with deteriorating infrastructure because of a lack of precision in where and when to fix aging water pipelines. Now, some cash-strapped cities are embracing new technology to make water repairs more efficient, with the goal of cutting construction costs and lowering utility bills. The need is pressing, as global climate change, with an increasing frequency of floods, droughts and warmer weather, is overloading water systems.

Progress on new artificial intelligence (AI) technology could make monitoring at water treatment plants cheaper and easier and help safeguard public health. Researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed AI software capable of identifying and quantifying different kinds of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, a threat to shut down water systems when it suddenly proliferates. "We need to protect our water supplies," said Monica Emelko, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and member of the Water Institute at Waterloo. "This tool will arm us with a sentinel system, a more rapid indication when they are threatened. "The exciting piece is that we've shown testing utilizing AI can be done quickly and well.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed AI software capable of identifying and quantifying different kinds of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, a threat to shut down water systems when it suddenly proliferates. "We need to protect our water supplies," said Monica Emelko, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and member of the Water Institute at Waterloo. "This tool will arm us with a sentinel system, a more rapid indication when they are threatened. "The exciting piece is that we've shown testing utilizing AI can be done quickly and well. Now it's time to work through all the possible scenarios and optimize the technology."