Detecting a burst rising main in Southern Water’s wastewater network

Southern Water provides wastewater services across the South East of England and runs one of the UK's largest SAM4 deployments. It supported the development of SAM4's burst rising main detection, providing data of verified bursts recorded since 2024.

At one of its sites, a two-pump sewage pumping station monitored by SAM4 from the motor control cabinet, with no instrumentation on the rising main itself, a burst began to develop underground. It is one of the hardest failures in a network to catch: the pipe is buried, the sewage is pressurised, and the pumps keep running as if nothing is wrong. Left unseen, a hidden burst becomes a serious pollution incident, fines, clean-up, and real harm to the receiving environment.

At 01:41 UTC on 9 June 2026, SAM4 raised a red burst rising main alert, based on a sustained, station-wide change in the pumps’ electrical behaviour, with guidance to verify pipework integrity and look for signs of spillage.

A loss of integrity on the rising main. The failure was not visible through conventional reporting routes, and there was no instrumentation on the main itself to flag it. SAM4 picked it up from the station’s electrical data alone.

SAM4 detected the developing failure overnight and raised a red alert at 01:41 with clear first steps. The customer's team inspected the same morning, escalated as the evidence built, and stopped the pumps within 20 hours. Dye testing confirmed the burst, and the site was kept isolated during the repair.

A live burst was inspected, verified and isolated within 20 hours of the alert, avoiding a minimum of £200,000 in pollution fines and significantly limiting the environmental impact, plus the considerable costs of containing a burst rising main to prevent spilling into the environment (estimate provided by Southern Water). The alert was raised overnight, from the pumps’ electrical signature alone, with no instrumentation on the rising main itself. SAM4 continues to monitor the station closely.