According to a study undertaken by the World Bank, by 2025, half of the earth’s population will have to live in regions with water scarcity.

We do not think about it usually, but the idea of water conservation is getting more important around the world. The same article mentions that a staggering 45 million cubic meters of water are lost globally each year due to leaks, underscoring the critical need for efficient water management.

It is no wonder the importance of water audits and how to conduct water audits for businesses has become a glaring issue in the current times.

Similar to energy audits, water audits for businesses evaluate how water is used within a facility. These audits try to spot water wastage due to leakages or bad piping. They aim at determining losses in water and developing measures for making the facility more efficient in terms of its use.

Water audits not only conserve water but also optimize operational costs by preventing overbilling through expert analysis and accurate usage prediction. Hence, regular water audits identify areas for improvement and uncover potential cost-saving measures within a facility.

What is a Water Audit for Businesses?

The water audit process examines an organization's water usage from entry to wastewater discharge, identifying areas for reducing consumption.

It assesses current systems, detects leaks, wastage, and excess use, and recommends strategies for efficient use, conservation, and enhanced treatment.

The audit establishes a water balance by measuring flow from extraction to discharge, revealing hidden losses. It also suggests tracking water usage and implementing modern technologies to reduce consumption and improve efficiency.

Learn More: Water Audit For Your Business - Meaning & Importance

Types of Water Audit

Most water audits for businesses come in two forms:-

Self-audit:

The facility monitors its water usage to be more efficient.

Professional Audit:

An external expert provides a detailed assessment of water use and cost-benefit analysis. 

A water audit includes a preliminary survey and a detailed investigation of water usage. The preliminary survey is done to collect background information on plant activities, consumption patterns of water and discharge patterns of waste streams as well as information regarding rates charged for them.

Detailed Steps in a Water Audit

Depending on the water system’s size and scale, there are different ways and stages to undertake a water audit. However, the framework for general water audit for businesses is as follows:

Step 1:

Defining water audit objectives and scope. This means that goals, boundaries, and indicators of the water audit such as balancing of water, efficiency of its use or safety have to be determined.

Step 2:

Gathering data and information on the water system. This includes identifying and measuring the sources, uses and losses in the water systems by meters, sensors, surveys or models.

Step 3:

Evaluating and comparing how much of one kind of resource is used by one type of system over another. This includes calculating and benchmarking various indicators related to consumption rates like water consumption per person per day or unit volume, etc.

Step 4:

Identifying conservation measures that can be implemented to reduce/prevent further depletion/ degradation of available groundwater resources. This includes assessing potential conservation measures such as leak detection & repair; reuse & recycling; demanding management strategies or improved water quality.

Step 5:

Implementing and monitoring the water conservation actions. This entails planning and implementing water conservation projects and monitoring and evaluating their effects towards water savings, cost savings or improvement in water quality.

Read More: Preserving Our Future - Water Conservation Projects in India

Who Needs a Water Audit?

Water audit for businesses can be used to measure and compare how much water is being used by different sectors or individuals like industry, agriculture and domestic users.

Moreover, it can assist in recognizing and carrying out water savings practices such as recycling, harvesting or reuse.

Earth’s natural resources are its treasures, which have been carelessly misused. This is especially necessary for commercial establishments.

There are many ways firms could counter issues like wastage of water; some examples of the best practices for water audits in businesses appear below:

Water Reuse

What are some other ways of reusing water in your operations? Water reuse applications for businesses include cooling towers, rainwater catchment systems and grey water for irrigation.

Critically assess the costs of adding new pumps, plumbing and other devices for reclaiming and treating water and how these costs could fit into your budget.

Employee Training and Education

Employees learn better about water conservation when they know why it is so important to be sustainable. Find a favorable time with your Green Team to educate workers on the best practices of water management. This should be an interactive learning experience where employees can make their suggestions.

Efficient Water System Maintenance

Water consumption systems in industrial settings should be regularly inspected. Regular checks can uncover repair issues that cause excessive water consumption resulting from faulty systems.

For instance, it is better to check for pipe leaks and drains. Even small leakages could result in significant water losses and increased costs. Therefore, regular monitoring is a good way of cutting down on expenses.

Adopting Low-flow Fixtures

Low-flow devices in both washrooms and kitchens will result in a decrease in water users which include customers, employees or clients. In such an infrastructure, installation of waterless urinals in many cases lowers usage by introducing toilet aerators or even touchless taps into them thus better hygiene and health conditions usually follow afterwards.

Read More- Ways to Conserve Water: Easy And Effective Tips

How Does Kritsnam Help with Water Auditing?

Kritsnam has empowered companies with water intelligence and is helping them with water conservation for businesses through audits. This is possible through water audit tools such as ‘Dhaara’, a breakthrough in water budgeting that enables organizations to objectively assess their exposure to water-related risks and manage them using technology.

At Kritsnam we are partnering with companies that are ready to adopt evidence-based scientific practices guiding sustainability of water resources. ‘Dhaara’ - which is our first product, is designed for data-driven decision-making by water managers on how to save both money and water.

Managers can model the overall corporate budgets of a given organization concerning every single aspect of its activities using the Dhaara tool before they can keep track of the real usage patterns against those budgets. It also helps them identify gaps in potentially weak areas or take corrective actions as a result of those identified weaknesses found between actual consumption behaviour with planned patterns.

Dhaara builds a virtual replica of industries’ processes involving industrial waters. Continuous water audit for businesses allow users to follow their daily consumption rates, evaluate process-wise aqueous expenditure, detect leaks at source points, and minimize such leakages.

Read More- How Dhaara Eliminates The Need For SCADA?

Water Audits for Sustainability

Water auditing is a systematic process for measuring and accounting for the water use and losses in a water system, targeting water conservation measures and improvements.

A water audit is important because it helps in reducing water wastage, improving the quality of water and safety besides enhancing the efficiency and productivity of water.

In addition, there are challenges related to carrying out an effective audit such as the availability of data, its reliability, institutional support, technical capacity and financing aspects among others that are also faced.

Therefore, an integrated approach is required through many actors from different sectors as well as adaptive processes which involve regular updating and reviewing of water system actions, performances and data.

In a nutshell, when a facility undertakes a planned water audit after securing the water audit checklist, it provides a snapshot of the current situation about the resource – how much is used on what site if there are any leaks or unusual losses, etc.

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