Spotlight on: Water

Latest case studies

Making drinking water safe

• University of Manchester research has played a critical role in moving the water distribution industry toward more proactive – “smart” data-driven – management of critical networks, to turn data into knowledge. Read the case study

Arsenic research identifies avoidable health risks

• Worldwide over 100,000,000 people are exposed to arsenic through the use of high arsenic groundwaters, resulting in 100,000s of premature deaths annually. Our research has enabled better prediction of groundwater arsenic, highlighted eating rice as a major arsenic exposure route, and provided quantitative estimates of arsenic-attributable health and economic risks. Read the case study

System-scale design of water resource systems

• Our Water Resource Group have influenced how national water transfer investments are selected for design by water companies and assessed by regulators, both in England and Wales and abroad, by developing design approaches, models and open-source software tools for system-scale multi-criteria assessment and optimisation of water resource interventions. Read the case study

Patterns of water

• This research takes practices (like doing the laundry, gardening, or cooking) as the unit of analysis when exploring water use – rather than attitudes, behaviours or simply ‘litres used’, allowing us to have a deeper understanding of the routines and habits of everyday life that lead to domestic water consumption. Read the case study