How Drones Can Benefit Water Treatment Plants

How can drones for water treatment plants help?

Drones for water treatment plants mainly save inspection time. A plant is a large, spread-out site with open basins, covered tanks, rooftop equipment, pipe runs, pump stations and electrical yards, and most checks on those assets mean walking, climbing or leaning over wet and raised surfaces. A drone can fly the site on a fixed route, photograph and video each asset from above, and give the operator an overview of conditions in one pass.

The useful change is where the crew spends its hours. Instead of sending people up to look at every basin edge and tank roof, the crew reviews aerial imagery first and walks only to the spots that look wrong. Images can be compared with the last flight, so a crack, a shifted section or a changed surface shows up as a question for the crew to answer.

Scale is the reason this matters. EPA reports more than 148,000 public water systems in the United States, and many of the larger ones run several treatment sites. A visual check of a whole property takes longer than most operators have in a week. Below we cover where drones fit, what they cannot do, and how a site assessment answers the question for your plant.

What does inspection look like at these plants today?

Most treatment plants still inspect by hand. Operators walk the edges of aeration basins, climb to check tank hatches and roofs, and go up to rooftop equipment on a schedule, then log what they see. Wet concrete, grating, railings and wind make each trip slower than the checklist suggests.

The footprint keeps growing. The Infrastructure Report Card says the number of publicly owned wastewater treatment works rose from more than 16,000 to upward of 17,500 facilities from 2012 to 2022. The same report says 38% of existing centralized treatment plants provide advanced treatment, and each added process step is one more set of tanks, covers and equipment to check on a visit.

EPA's 2011 residuals report counted 2,151 drinking water treatment plants serving more than 10,000 people, and 688 of those served more than 50,000. That report is older, so treat the count as a baseline. The pattern still holds: many large sites where a full walk-through is a long job for a small crew.

What are the main benefits?

The biggest benefit is less time on raised and wet surfaces, which in practice means less time at the top of tanks and along basin edges. A drone sees the roof of a tank, the surface of a basin and the top of a building without a person climbing or leaning over. Initial inspection of water tanks by drone may reduce the need for operators to access tanks, which lowers injury risk, according to a utility drone program page.

Beyond safety, the aerial view gives the plant things a walk cannot. These are the benefits we see most often in the reviews of drone programs:

• An overview of a whole basin in one pass, so patterns across the surface stand out. According to the Association for Drones, aerial imagery of an aeration basin can show visible patterns that may point to areas needing operational investigation.
• A clear view of hard-to-reach tanks and areas through aerial photos and video.
• Repeat flights on the same route, which let the team compare this month with last month.
• A dated image record for each asset, which a maintenance team can plan work against.

How does the drone work there day to day?

A plant that runs a drone program starts with a fixed route. Each flight covers the same basins, tanks, pipe runs and rooftop equipment, so the images line up from week to week. Before launch, the operator checks wind and weather, confirms the site's flight permissions, and launches from a set point. The pilot is usually a trained member of the plant team.

Utilities that have tried this show what the routine looks like at scale. One California utility uses drones for preliminary inspection of 40 potable water reservoirs, four recycled water reservoirs, 20 pump stations and a recycled water treatment plant, after a two-year study, according to its drone program page.

An Australian utility trialed UAV inspections of a spillway and a main carrier at one of its treatment plants. The checks covered cracking, shifting, chipping, surface degradation and weed encroachment, according to Utility Magazine. After each flight, the crew reviews the images at a desk and sends a maintenance person only to the spots that need hands-on work.

Which areas of the plant does it cover?

Drones work best on the large outdoor and raised assets that take up the most walking time. The six areas below are where we see the clearest fit, each with its own flight pattern and its own reason to look.

Process halls, confined spaces and the inside of enclosed tanks are not on this list. Those stay with the crew, with the tools and procedures that match each space.

The exact list changes from plant to plant. A site assessment maps which assets are worth flying and which are better handled by hand.

How does it work alongside existing staff?

A drone does not replace the operators on shift. It changes how their time is spent. The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook puts water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators at about 131,000 jobs in 2025, and it projects a job outlook of -6% (a decline) for 2025 to 2035. With fewer people available for field work, each walk-through is worth more, and a drone helps protect that time.

In practice, the plant keeps its operators and adds a small team around the drone. A trained pilot, often a staff member already on shift, runs the flights. The operator who knows the asset reviews what the images show, and a maintenance person goes to the spots that need hands-on work. The drone works with a small team, never without one.

Most operators work for local government, according to the BLS Handbook, so new equipment usually goes through public budgets and approvals. Plan for that when you scope a drone program, and include the staff training time in the plan from the start.

What drives the savings?

The savings come from walk time you no longer spend and from climbs you no longer make to the same asset. We do not have a verified hour figure for your plant, and we will not quote one. A site assessment times your present walk routes, counts the assets on your schedule and measures how many trips a drone could cover, so the hours you see come from your own site.

For drones for water treatment plants, the savings are easiest to see in the trips you can drop. A preliminary flight can tell the crew which tanks or pump stations need a hands-on visit this week and which can wait for the regular round. Fewer unplanned climbs also means fewer chances for a routine check to turn into an incident.

Injury risk belongs in the savings calculation too. Fewer people on tank roofs and rooftops means fewer exposures to the hazards that slow these tasks down in the first place.

What can a drone not do?

A drone sees the outside, the top and the surface. It does not sample water, turn valves, read gauges inside an enclosed tank or repair anything. Anything that needs a hand, a probe or a person inside a space still goes to the crew.

Weather and wind limit flights, and airspace rules and the site's own security and access limits apply as well. Plan for days when the drone stays on the ground, and keep the manual inspection schedule as the backup.

Drones also see only what their sensors pick up. A Linköping University study used custom drones to measure methane and nitrous oxide at twelve Swedish plants using anaerobic digestion, finding emissions about 2.5 times IPCC model levels, according to Open Access Government. That shows drones can measure gases over a site, but the study covers wastewater plants, so a drinking water plant will need its own list of what to measure.

How do I get started?

Start with a free site assessment. We walk the plant with you, map the assets worth flying, list the walk routes that take the most time and check the site for flight limits and access. We pick the right drone for the site, and we say so plainly if a drone is not the right tool for a given asset.

Service Robot Co. is a US commercial robot integrator. We lease the drone through financing, deploy and integrate it at your site, train the staff who will fly and review it, and service it nationwide. The payment comes in the quote after the site assessment, so you see the full picture before you decide.

Pick one pilot area first, such as the basins and tank roofs, and run it for a set period. Compare walk times and findings against your existing process, then decide which other assets to add.