Since 1993, the United Nations has set aside March 22 as World Water Day. With this year’s commemoration rapidly approaching, there is no better time to reflect on the importance of having fresh, clean water—and to acknowledge the severity of global water scarcity.
It doesn’t take much digging to discover the breadth of this problem. Internationally, the United Nations World Water Development Report finds that roughly half of the global population experiences extreme water shortages for at least part of the calendar year. Domestically, the recent wildfires in Los Angeles highlight the calamity that can befall arid, water-deprived regions.
Individual homeowners have long been challenged to do their part to conserve precious water resources—for example, by abbreviating the time they spend showering or by installing low-flow toilets and other fixtures. Such actionable steps can be more challenging in multifamily properties, where residents can’t always make permanent changes themselves, water usage is more complex, and inefficiencies are more difficult to isolate. Thankfully, there are solutions available to promote water conservation even in the most sprawling of apartment complexes, with smart leak detection standing out as particularly useful.
Why Water Conservation Is Challenging in Multifamily Communities
By definition, apartment buildings have a higher density of residents when compared with single-family homes. This results in large volumes of water consumption each day by residents and staff, including water used for cooking, showering, laundry, and even community swimming pools and water features. Irrigating and maintaining shared green spaces only further increases the rate of water use. If even one resident is inefficient in their water consumption, it can lead to significant waste for the property as a whole.
Of course, part of the difficulty lies in identifying where specific inefficiencies occur. Identifying wasteful habits or out-of-date appliances is one thing in a single-family home, but it’s altogether more daunting in an environment shared by many different households. And, simply due to the more complex plumbing architecture in a multifamily building, it can also be more challenging to find the source of individual leaks, which can be major contributors to overall waste.
How Smart Leak Detection Promotes Conservation
To address some of the obstacles that multi\family buildings face when it comes to water conservation and sustainability, an investment in smart technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI)-powered leak detection, can go a long way.
One reason for this is that smart leak detection helps building owners work with a more complete set of information. The best leak detection technologies can provide granular detail about a building’s water consumption patterns, offering a greater level of detail and precision than a traditional water meter. In fact, smart leak detection technology can be so exacting that it can effectively identify and categorize each water application throughout the day. In other words, it can ascertain whether water use denotes a flushed toilet, routine handwashing, the use of a dishwasher, or something else.
Such data can be essential for apartment managers and building supervisors to understand water consumption patterns within their facilities, and even to break down water use to individual units. AI plays a vital role here, quickly learning what typical water use patterns look like across the property—and alerting owners and managers to any significant aberrations or irregularities that arise. These advanced analytics and real-time alerts make it easy to know when a leak has developed and to address it quickly and proactively.
Smart leak detection technology can even make it easier for plumbers (or a member of the property’s maintenance team) to promptly patch leaks, minimizing ongoing waste. The data provided by AI-guided leak detectors can pinpoint the exact zone or area here the leak has developed—again, offering a level of accuracy that water meters alone cannot match.
The bottom line: With smart leak detection, multifamily buildings can take a much more proactive and date-driven approach to conservation, using meaningful metrics to monitor and address internal inefficiencies.
Other Water Conservation Strategies for Apartment Buildings
Smart leak detectors can be especially effective when they are combined with other practical solutions to minimize wasted water, promoting a multipronged approach to conservation and sustainability within an apartment community.
Some additional strategies to employ include:
- Installing low-flow fixtures: Low-flow faucets, toilets, and showerheads, when installed buildingwide, can significantly curb water use—all without any impediments to performance.
- Upgrading old appliances. Switching to water-efficient dishwashers and washing machines can go a long way toward reducing overall water consumption within a multifamily environment.
- Thinking strategically about irrigation. Green spaces improve quality of life in any multifamily community, but maintaining those spaces can be costly. Water reduction strategies include using drip irrigation methods and focusing on native vegetation, which typically requires less water.
Seeking Sustainability in a Multifamily Environment
Water scarcity remains a major global problem—making conservation a laudable goal in any space, particularly in multifamily housing. And while conservation poses some big challenges, state-of-the-art technology can help to meet those challenges—particularly AI leak detection. The right technology investment can pay major dividends in terms of a building’s water efficiency and overall sustainability. World Water Day is the right time for property owners to commit to conservation, and to invest in the technologies that can make it happen.
