What is digital water quality monitoring & what obstacles does it face for large-scale implementation?
The water industry has traditionally been cautious and resistant to wholesale changes. With a focus on public health, reliability and stringent regulations, the industry is set up to be conservative in decision making. Water technologies face the dual problem of slow adaptation from public sector authorities and hesitation for capital investment from the private sector due to the heavily regulated environment.
In fact, water has been the forgotten frontier of the clean tech world with only 5% of the $4.3 billion of VC money in the industry going to water technologies. Even federal agencies are working with Kennedy-era policies regarding water. However, without a continual emphasis on updating technology in the water industry, we risk billions of dollars wasted on excess, water scarcity, industrial waste polluting essential waterways and billions of lives being forced to live without access to basic water needs.
