The problem: water utilities lose a large share of the treated, pressurised water they put into their pipes through leaks and bursts — in Italy, on average, around 40% of it. Every lost cubic metre is lost revenue and wasted treatment and pumping energy. Yet utilities manage tens of thousands of kilometres of buried pipe with little visibility of where the real risk is, so renewal budgets are spread thinly and field leak-surveys are slow and costly. The project: a technology SME is developing a decision-support service that uses satellite data to screen, from space, the whole area crossed by a utility's buried network and turns the result into a ranked, budget-limited action plan: which pipe sections to survey, repair or renew first, ordered by the water and money each intervention would save. It combines satellite Earth-observation data — radar measurements of ground movement and of soil moisture, plus optical imagery — with the utility's own records (pipe age and material, past leaks, metering data) and uses artificial intelligence to produce operational recommendations that update with each new satellite pass. It is a decision engine, not just a map or a dashboard. The underlying decision engine is already in commercial use in another infrastructure sector across more than 2,600 cities in France and Italy; the water application is new and will be validated with the pilot utility. Earth Observation is the enabling ingredient: it gives wide-area, repeated, cost-efficient screening of the whole network — including the large rural or poorly-instrumented parts where a utility has almost no ground data. A core test of the project is whether adding satellite data measurably improves the ranking of where to intervene, compared with using conventional records alone. The programme: the work is carried out under the European Space Agency's ACCESS / Business Applications programme, in partnership with Water Europe, as a proof-of-concept study. The project lasts about 12 months. Timescales: the application runs in steps: a short pitch by 30 August 2026; then an outline proposal within about two months of approval; then a full proposal. Expressions of interest from candidate utilities are welcome as soon as possible — the letter of interest is needed for the outline-proposal stage, expected in autumn 2026. The partner sought: a water utility or water service operator that runs a real drinking-water distribution network and is willing to act as pilot end-user: hosting the demonstration on part of its network, sharing asset and leak-history data under a data-sharing agreement, helping validate the results and exploring later adoption. No technology development or cash co-funding is required from the partner; its contribution is operational input, data access and validation time. Type of partnership: research cooperation agreement. Technical Specification or Expertise Sought: The partner is a water distribution / service operator able to provide: 1. A real drinking-water network area to use as pilot site, ideally one with known high water-loss (non-revenue-water) levels. 2. Access, under a data-sharing agreement, to its asset register (pipe age, material, diameter and location), historical leak and burst records, and — where available — district-metered-area or hydraulic/telemetry data. 3. Domain experts in network planning, asset management and leak detection to help define requirements and validate the satellite-derived results against real field outcomes. 4. Willingness to sign a letter of interest for the outline-proposal stage and to evaluate adoption of the service after the demonstration. No technology development, sensor deployment or cash co-funding is required from the partner: its role is end-user, data provider and validation site. Expected role of a partner: Type of partner: a water utility or water service operator (public, private or mixed ownership) responsible for running a drinking-water distribution network. Role: pilot end-user and water service operator within the project team — hosting the demonstration on a real network, sharing asset and leak-history data, helping validate results and guiding the route to commercial adoption; provides a letter of interest at the outline-proposal stage. Type of partnership sought: research cooperation agreement. No cash co-funding is requested from the partner; its contribution is data access, operational input and validation time.