At this point, we have the ...
Published by Mark Beatty, Employee at Utility Technologies, LLC
At this point, we have the following to my knowledge:
Acoustic - Traditional leak detectors, leak noise correlators, leak loggers; Some use microphones to listen on the pipe wall, others use hydrophones to listen in contact with the water column. There is also an insertable camera with a hydrophone as well form Aquam to not only hear, but see flaws in the pipe.
Tracer Gas - There are both hydrogen and helium based leak detectors that can detect leaks that don't make sound detectable with acoustic devices.
Thermal Imaging - Thermal cameras at ground level or satellite can detect if a leak causes temperature differences in the ground.
Pressure Sensors - Remote pressure sensors can detect changes in distribution system pressure over time for leaks or immediately for bursts. There are remote IoT systems now to monitor as well as traditional SCADA systems.
DMA's - District metering can compare water produced to water sold to detect losses that may be leaks. smaller areas can narrow down search by other methods, but does not generally pinpoint.
Dogs - There are dogs that can be trained to find leaks. I'm not completely sure if they are sniffing for chlorine or flouride, or use a combination of acoustics.
Analystics - Analytics software can crunch data from all of the above sources to put water loss data on a dashboard to detect, compare, correlate and track water loss data.
Sewer metering/monitoring - Monitoring average flow rates in the sewer system with ultrasonic and dopler meters can also indicate leaks that may be infiltrating the sewer systems rather than surfacing.
My Company provides all of the above from various vendors except search dogs and thermal imaging.
Mark Beatty, Owner - Utility Technologies, LLC
Manufacturers to look at sixtyfourseconds.com, Sewerin.com Aquampd.com , Kamstrup.com, H2oAnalytics.com, aquarius-spectrum.com, clamponflow.com.