Visualizing Resilience: How OWASA Uses Live Telemetry and Scenario Planning to Protect Water Infrastructure

The Background: Building on an Established Approach

Orange Water and Sewer Authority (OWASA) is a forward-thinking water utility committed to continuously improving its digital capabilities and maintaining resilient service for its community. 

OWASA has established operational procedures and emergency response plans to keep its distribution network running smoothly. With several connections to neighbouring utilities, understanding how different parts of the system interact is an important part of managing changing demand and responding to operational challenges.

Like many water utilities, OWASA has traditionally used external engineering consultants for advanced hydraulic modelling, particularly for capital improvement projects and long-term infrastructure planning. This meant that while detailed models were available, internal teams had limited opportunities to interact with them and explore everyday operational scenarios independently.

OWASA wanted to make its existing network model more accessible to internal staff, giving engineers the ability to investigate basic baseline scenarios, validate data, and build a better understanding of how the system behaves. This meant finding a way to simplify access to hydraulic modelling without requiring high-overhead, specialist training.

The Operational Challenge: When Every ‘What If?’ Requires Outside Help

Advanced hydraulic modelling involves more than simply accessing network data. Building, adapting, and interpreting models requires specialist expertise, which can limit how readily the wider engineering team can use them to investigate operational questions, and create operational bottlenecks in the process. 

For OWASA, this created a gap between having a detailed model of its network and being able to use that model for everyday decision-making.

Consider the kinds of questions engineers might want to investigate:

Previously, exploring these scenarios could mean preparing a request for an external consultant, sharing the relevant information, and waiting for the model to be updated and the results returned.

This consultant-led approach remained valuable for complex engineering work, but it wasn’t always suited to quick internal exploration. The model effectively became a black box: a powerful source of information that internal teams couldn’t easily interact with themselves. This made it challenging for internal teams to explore scenarios collaboratively or compare what they were seeing in the field with the information captured in the model.

OWASA wanted to change that. It needed a more dynamic, spatial environment where engineers could engage directly with network data, investigate operational questions, and validate their assumptions without having to commission a new modelling exercise every time.

The Strategy: Integrating an Accessible Layer into the Stack

OWASA explored a browser-based digital twin platform that replicated a functional network  to make its existing network information easier to access and work with.

Using existing GIS data, OWASA created an interactive, digital representation of the physical water network. Instead of relying solely on technical model outputs, engineers can explore network assets and their properties through a visual interface.

The initial focus was on making the network architecture and underlying data accessible. This gave the team an opportunity to understand how the model worked, explore its capabilities, and identify gaps in existing records before moving towards more advanced integrations.

The strategy centred on three key ways to make network modelling more accessible and useful to internal teams:

Engineers can investigate basic operational scenarios, such as modelling water main shutdowns or exploring pipe isolation zones. This gives staff a way to test ideas and gain an initial understanding of potential network impacts without having to request a separate modelling exercise for every question.

Visualising GIS information makes it easier to spot missing parameters, inconsistencies, and potential inaccuracies in existing records. Rather than working through spreadsheets or disconnected datasets, engineers can see network assets in their geographical context and investigate issues more intuitively.

OWASA has taken a staged approach to developing its digital capabilities. By first establishing an interactive network model and improving its understanding of the underlying data, the utility is creating a foundation for future SCADA and live telemetry integration.

This avoids the need for a large-scale technology overhaul upfront, allowing the team to develop its capabilities incrementally.

The Impact: A More Accessible Way to Understand and Manage the Network

Making hydraulic modelling more accessible has implications beyond the ability to run individual scenarios. It changes how engineering teams can interact with network information, share knowledge, and approach operational questions.

1. Moving Beyond Static Model Outputs to Dynamic Reviews

An interactive network model gives engineers a different way to conduct internal technical reviews.

Instead of relying exclusively on static reports, spreadsheets, or outputs prepared by external specialists, staff can explore network assets and their relationships on a map. This makes it easier and faster  to connect technical information with the physical infrastructure it represents.

It also provides a shared visual reference for internal discussions, helping teams understand proposed changes, investigate observations, and work through operational questions together.

2. Making Room for More Organic Innovation

When exploring a scenario doesn’t require a separate consultant request, engineers have more freedom to investigate ideas.

They can test basic assumptions, explore potential network changes, and identify questions that may require more detailed engineering analysis without exhausting project budgets. This makes modelling a more accessible part of everyday problem-solving, rather than something reserved primarily for major projects.

It also gives staff an opportunity to identify potential data issues earlier, before those gaps become obstacles to more complex modelling work.

3. Strengthening and Preserving Knowledge Across Teams

Water utilities on more than technical documentation and infrastructure. They also rely on the experience and institutional knowledge of the people who understand how their networks behave.

Making that information easier to visualize and explore helps experienced engineers communicate their understanding of the system to colleagues. Newer team members can explore the interactive model to familiarize themselves with network assets, connections, and relationships. 

Over time, this helps democratize critical knowledge access across the organization, and reduces the reliance on the expertise that may be concentrated among a handful of more experienced engineers.