The majority of customer complaints for water authorities are related to dirty or discoloured water events. In the past two years, the Co-operative Research Centre for Water Quality and Treatment, (CRC), the Netherlands Kiwa Water Research (KIWA), Delft University of Technology (DUT) and Griffith University in Australia, have exchanged personnel, knowledge and resources to develop tools that allow improved understanding of processes leading to generation of discoloured water. This paper summarises the outcomes and demonstrates examples of the successful application of the Water Quality and Treatment's Particles Sediment Model (PSM) in the Netherlands and the trialling of the KIWA Re-suspension Potential Method (RPM) in several Australian water utilities.