We recently explored BloomIQ at Essex & Suffolk Water’s Innovation Day, using a focused sprint to deep dive into one of the water sector’s growing operational challenges: how to move from reacting to algal blooms to predicting them.
BloomIQ is Kohtari’s AI-powered algal bloom predictive intelligence platform. It brings together environmental, operational and asset-specific data to help water companies understand bloom risk earlier, make better decisions and manage reservoirs more proactively.
The day gave us a valuable opportunity to test that thinking with operational, innovation and water quality teams, and to understand what earlier, more actionable insight needs to look like in real-world water company settings.
This is what we learned.
What the session asked
The sprint centred on a simple question:
How do we move from reacting to algal blooms to predicting them in time to act?
That question matters because water companies are not short of data. The challenge is how fragmented that data still is, and how difficult it can be to turn signals across different systems, teams and organisations into operational decisions.
By the time a bloom is visible, teams may already be working with limited time, incomplete insight and competing operational pressures.
What we heard: algal blooms are a joined-up resilience challenge
During the sprint, participants explored the impacts algal blooms create across the water system.
The strongest theme was that blooms are not just a water quality issue. They create connected pressures across operations, treatment, supply, customers, workforce wellbeing, environment and ecology, regulation and reputation.
That is what makes reactive management so difficult. A single bloom can influence treatment decisions, operational workload, cost, customer confidence and resilience planning at the same time.
What predictive intelligence could improve
We also asked participants how predictive insights could improve current ways of working. The responses came back to a consistent theme: better foresight creates better options.
Earlier visibility of risk could help teams prioritise resources, plan treatment more effectively, make stronger evidence-led decisions and reduce the pressure of responding once an issue has already escalated.
The value is not prediction for prediction’s sake. It is about turning complex and changing conditions into practical intelligence that helps teams decide where to focus, when to act and how to reduce risk.
Why BloomIQ exists
The discussions at Essex & Suffolk Water reinforced why BloomIQ exists: to help the water sector move from reacting to algal blooms to predicting them early enough to make better operational decisions.
BloomIQ brings together environmental, operational and asset-specific data to forecast algal bloom risk, severity and timing at reservoir level. It is designed to give teams clearer, earlier and more usable intelligence, so they can act sooner and with greater confidence. This helps water companies strengthen water quality resilience, reduce operational and treatment costs and improve public trust.
Building BloomIQ with Essex & Suffolk Water
The Innovation Day also reinforced the importance of collaboration in shaping solutions that work for the sector.
We’re delighted to be working with Essex & Suffolk Water to explore how BloomIQ can help address the operational challenges associated with algal blooms.
Having completed a phase of work using retrospective data for one of its reservoirs, we are now working together to bring in real-time data and develop predictive modelling of algal bloom risk.
This partnership is helping ensure BloomIQ is shaped around real operational needs, not just technical capability.
Chris Fulton, Head of Water Supply at Essex & Suffolk Water, commented:
“BloomIQ gives us the opportunity to better predict and understand algal blooms in our reservoirs, turning insight into real-time operational decisions. Through the sprint process, we are helping shape a tool that supports the shift from reactive to proactive management.”
Blooming Algae! Join our sprint at Northumbrian Water’s Innovation Festival
We are excited to continue these conversations as we bring BloomIQ to our sprint at Northumbrian Water’s Innovation Festival from 6th to 9th July. We are inviting attendees from other water companies to join us and help shape the next phase of BloomIQ.
If you’re responsible for managing water quality, operations, innovation or resilience, we would love you to join us. Places are limited, so find out more and sign up here. Registration closes on 28th June, so don’t delay in booking your ticket – we hope to see you there!
Book a demo of BloomIQ
Want to see how predictive algal bloom intelligence could help your organisation stay ahead of risk? Book a demo of BloomIQ to explore how earlier insight can strengthen resilience, protect public trust and reduce operational costs.
