On World Water Day, the English and Welsh water regulator, Ofwat, has awarded £5.2m to innovative projects using new technology and cross-sector collaborations to improve water quality, reduce pollution and enhance services for consumers.

Between now and the summer, the Water Breakthrough Challenge will award up to £39m to projects across England and Wales. The Water Breakthrough Challenge is part of a series of competitions from Ofwat, and run by Nesta Challenges with Arup and Isle Utilities, designed to drive innovation and collaboration in the sector to benefit individuals, society and the environment.

Improving water and river quality

Several innovations to improve water quality have been awarded prizes. Severn Trent, working with California-based Microvi Biotechnologies and Cranfield University, has been awarded £760,000 to begin work on a “biocatalyst solution” that uses microorganisms that remove ammonia from wastewater without generating nitrous oxide emissions (a gas 300 times more potent than CO2).

“Tapwater Forensics” from a consortium of seven water companies and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology has been awarded £370,000 to meet its aim of establishing the UK as a leader in genetic sequencing of drinking water to revolutionise the ability to monitor and investigate water quality failures in the same way DNA testing revolutionised medicine and scientific research.

And £446,000 has been awarded to “SuPR Loofah” by Northumbrian Water, Welsh Water, the University of Newcastle and the University of Northumbria. The project removes and recovers phosphorous run-off from agricultural fertilisers using engineered micro-algae. This prevents it causing damaging algal blooms and uncontrolled outbreaks of weeds in watercourses which can suffocate natural ecosystems. Phosphorous is an essential but finite energy-intensive chemical resource which is diminishing – this new circular approach would see it re-used as fertiliser in agriculture. It can also reduce imports of phosphorus for farming and its associated emissions from mining and transportation.

More on this story can be read here from Ofwat.