WC143 JulyAug 2025 - Magazine - Page 17
“When you give communities the full picture—what’s
happening, where, and who’s responsible—it changes
everything,” says Varedi. “You move from finger-pointing
to action, from confusion to clarity.”
The processing pipeline is fully automated: within
minutes of new satellite data becoming available, the
system cleans and analyzes it, with results accessible via
web dashboards and mobile alerts. For water utilities,
this means early warnings for contamination risks, sometimes before water even enters the treatment plant. For
environmental agencies, it means the ability to act before
pollutants spread downstream.
Waterlix’s platform is in use by major water utilities
and authorities such as SABESP in Brazil, supporting
efforts to improve water quality in high-population areas.
By alerting operators to unusual spectral events or historic pollution hotspots, the system helps prioritize interventions, saving both time and resources.
Conservation groups and academic researchers are
using Waterlix to build long-term water quality baselines,
analyze the effectiveness of pollution control policies, and
identify emerging threats linked to climate change. With
each new dataset, the models become more accurate and
the coverage more comprehensive.
“This is not just a tool for today’s problems,” Varedi
says. “It’s building the evidence base we’ll need for the
next decade.”
The Waterlix vision is not limited to governments
or experts. Future iterations of the platform aim to
empower local communities and citizen scientists with
user-friendly maps and alerts, democratizing access to
data that was once limited to labs and bureaucracies.
For now, the focus is on scaling, both technically and
geographically. New satellites with improved resolution
and frequency will enhance the platform’s power. So will
partnerships with research institutions and governments
eager to modernize water governance.
“We’re at the beginning of a new chapter in environmental protection,” Varedi says. “For too long, we’ve
relied on outdated tools to manage one of our most vital
resources. But now, we have the means to see clearly—
and act quickly.”
WATER C AN ADA • JULY/AUGUS T 2025
17
