Investors start to pay attention to water risk

FROM A SMALL office in Montreal an artificial-intelligence business, Aquantix, plays sleuth for faraway investors worried about water risk. Its model combines high-resolution satellite imagery, weather-station data and regulatory documents scraped from the internet. It estimates not only how much water a business uses at its various sites but its water bill, the chances of drought or flooding in surrounding areas and the financial impact such disasters could have—all without contacting the company in question.