ABB technology nominated in Global Water Awards for successful drought response in Mexico

News | February 27, 2024

The work of ABB Measurement & Analytics and Servicios de Agua y Drenaje de Monterrey is nominated in this year’s Global Water Awards in the category ‘Smart Water Project of the Year’.

Servicios de Agua y Drenaje de Monterrey is responsible for supplying safe and healthy drinking water to its 5.6 million inhabitants in the Monterrey area of Mexico. 

Monterrey’s metropolitan area suffered a 6-year drought with two out of three dams reaching near depletion. The forecast indicated a gap of close to 20 percent between the demand for water in the city and the water utility’s capability of supplying water.

To address this challenge, Servicios de Agua y Drenaje de Monterrey, supported by the local government, bet on instrumenting its nearly 3,000 District Metered Area (DMA) with high-class technology, including 400 ABB AquaMaster4 flowmeters out of which five were supersized flowmeters. To transport the water from distant lakes, five aqueducts were built, and the flow was monitored and controlled using the five supersized flowmeters. This enabled stable and real-time measurement and thus better management of water distribution.

Through the instrumentation of thousands of its DMAs and an efficient operation, the Servicios de Agua y Drenaje de Monterrey was able to return to continuous service, requiring 15 percent less water than before the demand management measures were implemented. The flow and analysis of real time information allowed the utility to take rapid and assertive actions to recover huge amounts of water and to do a more sustainable and efficient resource management.

“What we see time and time again is that technology is key to improving lives. To preserve our planet's water resources and ensure there is enough water for everyone, we need to carefully manage water supplies. I could not be more proud that ABB’s technology has helped our partners in Mexico with their drought response,” said Amina Hamidi, Managing Director, ABB Instrumentation.

With the world’s population set to reach 10 billion by 2050, ensuring everyone has access to safe and clean water is a critical challenge.

The Global Water Awards celebrate the most important achievements in the water, wastewater, and desalination sectors. One of the focus areas is on innovative technology. 

Subscribers to the Global Water Intelligence Magazine and Global Water Summit ticket holders are eligible to vote in the Global Water Awards. You can support ABB by voting for the project “Monterrey demand management, Mexico”.

Find out more about the Global Water Awards. 