Compliance data is the most under-exploited source of decision-making data at water utilities today, and getting it under control is the single most important step utilities can take to digitize properly and realize their 20-year digital strategies while:

🚀 Fighting administrative paralysis and building digital platforms that are self-serve

🏗️ Serving internal customers better and getting new infrastructure funded and built

🤝 Building and maintaining trust by responding to water quality issues and new regulations quickly

Based on conversations with compliance managers and executives at water utilities in the United States, this report sheds light on the problem of data ‘icebergs’ and the struggle to wrangle thousands of permit-related tasks, deadlines and data points.

Showing how getting the ‘basics’ of data management right can unlock previously unrealized operational powers, we look at how organizations like DC Water are leveraging sound data practices to build the utility of the future.

We also show how the next 20 years of water utility management—shaped by massive transformations in revenue and resource recovery, and direct potable reuse (DPR) in particular—will only make compliance more important to securing the future of water.