Anglian Water Hive highlights flood risk data integration at World Water-Tech 2026

Hive brings operational data into a single view

Anglian Water’s in-house Hive platform offers a practical example of bringing network information together for operational use, according to Simon Beverley-Smith’s account of World Water-Tech Innovation Summit 2026. His report identifies the platform as evidence of water-sector technology moving into application, while warning that access to information alone does not ensure better outcomes.

Built using Esri’s ArcGIS Online and Experience Builder, Hive combines information held across multiple systems. Beverley-Smith highlighted it after attending the London summit at the end of February, describing a wider emphasis on improving visibility across networks and catchments to support flood risk decisions.

Hive brings together telemetry — measurements collected remotely — with asset data, weather inputs, work orders and flood alerts. Users can select which information layers to display, rather than viewing every dataset at once. According to Beverley-Smith, this gives teams a clearer real-time understanding of conditions than information held separately.

The flood risk value lies in understanding how rainfall travels through a catchment, the area draining towards a river or water system. Beverley-Smith identifies available capacity and locations where pressure is increasing as important parts of that picture, allowing teams to take a more proactive approach to intervention.

Beyond Hive, his account points to growing interest in combining satellite analysis, sensor readings and inspection records to understand risk. He describes a shift away from attempting comprehensive monitoring towards concentrating attention on the most important locations, using information to identify where interventions could have the greatest effect.

The constraint is how organisations act on that intelligence, Beverley-Smith argues. Where several bodies share responsibility, their teams, assets and priorities need to align before improved visibility can translate into operational results. His assessment distinguishes the practical advance represented by integrated information from the coordination still needed to use it effectively.

Catchment measures face divided funding and responsibilities

Unresolved funding and benefit-sharing questions are limiting the delivery of catchment-based measures at scale, according to Beverley-Smith. His summit account identifies three connected issues: which organisation pays, which parties benefit and how the value of those benefits is recognised. These remain obstacles even where the advantages of an approach are understood.

Catchment management considers water movement across the whole drainage area rather than treating individual systems in isolation. Beverley-Smith reports increasing attention to working with natural processes, including managing water upstream, improving infiltration — the movement of water into the ground — and reducing runoff. Each affects conditions further downstream.

Responsibility for those outcomes is divided among highways, drainage and flood risk bodies and water companies. Beverley-Smith says their objectives can be similar without their work being coordinated, because each operates with its own priorities and budget. That separation presents a practical delivery barrier alongside the unresolved valuation of benefits.

The operating conditions are also changing. Beverley-Smith links more intense rainfall and longer wet periods with pressure on ageing infrastructure that was not designed for those conditions. In his assessment, climate change already affects drainage performance, river behaviour and communities’ exposure to flooding, rather than representing only a future planning concern.

Stormwater management also forms part of the pollution challenge, his report argues. During heavy rainfall, combined networks — which carry wastewater and stormwater — interact with limited capacity and greater rainfall intensity. Beverley-Smith links those factors to material reaching rivers and seas, placing rainfall management within the wider wastewater debate.

Public scrutiny extends beyond flooding alone. During his visit, Beverley-Smith saw Channel 4’s temporary Fountain of Filth installation beside the Thames between Waterloo Bridge and Blackfriars, commissioned to coincide with its sewage-pollution drama Dirty Business. He reports that flooding, pollution and infrastructure failures are becoming more visible while public expectations change.

Summit account points to targeted monitoring and skills pressures

Potential workforce losses present a further constraint on delivery. Beverley-Smith warns that a significant proportion of water-sector staff could leave within the next five to ten years as experienced employees approach retirement. His account does not quantify the number of people affected, but identifies the possible loss of decades of accumulated experience.

The vulnerability extends beyond maintaining staffing levels. Beverley-Smith distinguishes knowledge developed through practical experience from information that can be recorded in an operating manual. He argues that employees’ understanding of how systems behave is difficult to replace once they leave, making the retention of operational knowledge a separate challenge from recruitment.

Meanwhile, greater reliance on digital tools and data is changing the skills the sector needs. Beverley-Smith identifies a transition in which organisations must develop those capabilities without discarding existing expertise. His assessment places workforce continuity alongside technological development as a delivery concern, rather than treating the adoption of digital systems as a purely technical exercise.

Delivery depends on turning shared information into coordinated action

Beverley-Smith’s closing assessment identifies policy and investment as support for the sector’s direction of travel. He does not set out a new delivery programme, funding allocation or implementation timetable. The next steps in his account are challenges for the industry to address, not announced commitments by summit participants.

A further difficulty is the limited visibility of day-to-day water infrastructure operations. Despite attention to failures, Beverley-Smith notes that much of the system operates underground or otherwise outside public view. His account draws a distinction between awareness of incidents and awareness of the infrastructure and operational work behind them.

He also qualifies his assessment of progress: the conversion of ideas into practical action remains uneven and is not proceeding as quickly as some would like. That qualification limits the conclusions that can be drawn from the examples discussed at the summit. His report offers evidence of movement, rather than a claim that implementation has become consistent across the sector.