From Concrete Basins to Brains: The AI Making Our Cities Flood-Proof

ATLANTA, GA – June 23, 2026 – For decades, the story of urban water management has been one of brute force: bigger pipes, deeper basins, and concrete channels designed to fight back against the rain. But as cities face the dual pressures of aging infrastructure and increasingly volatile weather, this reactive approach is proving dangerously inadequate. Now, a new collaboration is rewriting the script, transforming the humble stormwater drain from a passive receptacle into an intelligent, proactive guardian of urban landscapes.

Oldcastle Infrastructure, a titan in the world of building materials, has partnered with tech innovator Opti to launch SmartCapture™, a system that embeds digital intelligence directly into the concrete vaults buried beneath our streets. Announced today, the system integrates precast concrete storage with a sophisticated brain known as Continuous Monitoring and Adaptive Control (CMAC). By using weather forecasts and real-time sensor data, SmartCapture™ doesn't just hold water; it anticipates storms, makes decisions, and actively manages water levels to prevent floods before they happen. This shift from static concrete to dynamic, data-driven systems marks a pivotal moment in our quest to build more resilient, efficient, and livable cities.

Beyond Passive Systems: The Advent of Active Water Management

The core innovation of SmartCapture™ lies in its departure from the passive design philosophy that has governed stormwater management for over a century. Traditional systems are built to a fixed capacity based on historical rainfall data. They fill up during a storm and drain slowly afterward—a simple, but often inefficient, process. In an era of climate change, where a "100-year storm" can feel like an annual event, these systems are frequently overwhelmed, leading to flash floods, property damage, and environmental contamination from sewer overflows.

SmartCapture™ flips this model on its head. By integrating Opti's CMAC technology, the system becomes an active participant in the water cycle. It continuously pulls in data from weather forecasts, monitors water levels within its own storage units, and assesses conditions downstream. When the system's algorithm predicts a significant rainfall event, it can automatically open a valve to preemptively lower water levels in the basin, creating additional storage capacity precisely when it's needed most.

"SmartCapture brings together stormwater storage and adaptive control in a way the market has not seen before," said Matika Made, president of water quality at Oldcastle Infrastructure. "For engineers, municipalities and developers under pressure to do more with smaller footprints, tighter budgets and evolving weather patterns, this solution offers a practical way to improve performance, simplify construction and build more resilient stormwater systems."

This intelligence delivers tangible results. In one recent project, the use of SmartCapture™ eliminated the need for an entire secondary storage system. This not only saved between $315,000 and $425,000 in capital costs but also shaved two weeks off the construction schedule—a critical advantage in complex development projects. By optimizing the performance of the existing footprint, the technology effectively multiplies the value of every square foot of infrastructure.

A Real-World Test: Turning a Lake into a Smart Flood Defense

The theoretical promise of smart infrastructure is compelling, but its true value is proven in the field. In Statesboro, Georgia, a community grappling with chronic flooding around its 600-acre Lake Sal watershed, the technology has already demonstrated its transformative power. For years, heavy rains would cause the lake to overtop its banks, inundating roads and flooding residential properties. The existing infrastructure was simply undersized for the challenge.

Instead of embarking on a costly and disruptive expansion of the passive retention system, the city implemented SmartCapture™. The system transformed Lake Sal into a cloud-connected, actively managed asset. By constantly monitoring NOAA weather forecasts and lake levels, the system can now prepare for incoming storms. Before a major downpour, it automatically releases water to lower the lake level by up to two feet, creating an additional 19.5 acre-feet of storage capacity. According to Oldcastle, this is more than ten times the capacity that could have been achieved using conventional engineering techniques on the same site.

The Statesboro project serves as a powerful case study for how retrofitting intelligence into existing water bodies can yield outsized results. It’s a shift from building bigger to building smarter, a crucial evolution for cash-strapped municipalities facing daunting infrastructure deficits.

A Strategic Alliance Forging the Future of Water

The creation of SmartCapture™ is as much a story about strategic partnership as it is about technology. It represents the convergence of two different worlds: Oldcastle Infrastructure, a CRH company and a legacy provider of the physical building blocks of our nation, and Opti, a nimble tech firm specializing in the software and sensors that form the nervous system of modern infrastructure. This kind of collaboration is essential for overcoming the inertia that often plagues the public works sector.

While Opti’s CMAC technology has been deployed in other contexts, such as retrofitting existing ponds, the SmartCapture™ system is being marketed as "America's first fully integrated smart stormwater storage system." The distinction lies in the pre-packaged, embedded nature of the solution. By integrating the controls directly into the precast concrete units at the factory, the system simplifies the design and installation process for engineers, making advanced technology more accessible and scalable.

"By embedding adaptive control directly into the storage system, SmartCapture makes advanced stormwater management more accessible and easier to implement at scale," noted Viktor Hlas, president at Opti. "Together with Oldcastle Infrastructure, we're helping customers move beyond old, passive designs to modern infrastructure that can respond in real time to changing conditions and deliver best-in-class outcomes."

This integrated approach also gives municipalities unprecedented visibility into the performance of their assets. The system can feed real-time data directly into municipal SCADA platforms, providing a clear picture of how the infrastructure is functioning. This data is invaluable for ensuring regulatory compliance, managing long-term maintenance, and making more confident, data-driven decisions about future investments. As Hlas put it, "This is the standard, and people are going to look back and wonder why they ever did it any other way."

The long-term ripple effects extend far beyond flood mitigation. By holding stormwater longer and releasing it in a more controlled manner, these smart systems improve water quality by allowing pollutants like heavy metals and sediments to settle out. This reduces the strain on wastewater treatment plants and protects the health of local rivers and streams. For developers, optimizing storage in a smaller footprint frees up valuable land for other uses. In essence, this technology allows cities to do more with less—less concrete, less cost, and less environmental impact—paving the way for a more sustainable and resilient model of urban development.