{"id":579860,"date":"2026-01-07T23:08:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T23:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/?post_type=blog&p=579860"},"modified":"2026-01-23T17:51:46","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T17:51:46","slug":"uniting-the-uk-water-sector-through-open-data","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/blog\/articles\/uniting-the-uk-water-sector-through-open-data","title":{"rendered":"Uniting the UK Water Sector Through Open Data"},"content":{"rendered":"

Northumbrian Water Group is leading a transformative effort to unite the UK water sector through open data. By championing transparency and collaboration, they are creating a shared digital ecosystem that enables utilities to tackle common challenges, such as aging infrastructure, climate resilience, and population pressures, more effectively. This initiative fosters innovation, accelerates problem-solving, and empowers stakeholders to make data-driven decisions that safeguard water services for future generations.<\/p>\n\n

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Service areas and key infrastructure stats for Northumbrian Water and Essex & Suffolk Water across Great Britain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n

Challenge<\/h2>\n\n

For Northumbrian Water Group<\/a> (NWG), which serves 4.7 million customers across northern and southeastern England, challenges are both operational and societal. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing some of the hottest temperatures in the summer and some of the wettest winters on record,\u201d explained Martin Jackson, chief information officer at NWG. \u201cOur infrastructure was never really designed to cope with these extremes, which is putting pressure on our infrastructure and is leading to a lot more visibility of our sector in the UK at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

At the same time, the rising cost of living is heightening public scrutiny of utility spending. \u201cIt\u2019s becoming increasingly challenging for our customers to be able to pay their household bills,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cIf you marry that up with the investment that\u2019s required in infrastructure, it becomes an interesting time where we\u2019ve got to work extremely hard to maintain trust with our customers.\u201d

Like other water companies in the UK, NWG recognized that it needed to rethink how it managed and communicated information about its networks.<\/p>\n\n

Solution<\/h2>\n\n

In 2020, NWG and several partner utilities began exploring how they could collaborate more effectively through data sharing. \u201cA few water companies got together and thought: Actually, is it better for us to do open data collectively as a sector?\u201d recalled Andrew Myers, lead architect at NWG. \u201cWill we get more value from it? Will it be more efficient to work together?\u201d

The result was Stream<\/a>, an independent, sector-wide initiative designed to unlock the potential of water data for the benefit of customers, society, and the environment. Backed by innovation funding and working with civil society partners, Stream brought together nearly all UK water and wastewater companies to share data in standardized, interoperable formats.<\/p>\n\n

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The UK Water Industry\u2019s Open Data Initiative<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n

When the time came to choose a platform, the project team didn\u2019t begin with technology requirements\u2014it began with goals. \u201cWe didn\u2019t necessarily say it must be a geospatial platform,\u201d Myers said. Rather, the team knew it needed something that could provide decentralized data cataloging, support community features, and help tell stories with data. \u201cEsri\u2019s platform turned out to be the perfect fit,\u201d said Myers.

The Esri geospatial platform provided several essential capabilities:<\/p>\n\n