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Europe’s waters are under mounting pressure. Agricultural and industrial activities as well as increased urbanisation trigger pollution, over-abstraction and modification of water bodies. Digital technologies such as mobile devices, sensor networks, real-time monitoring, cloud computing, machine learning, and modelling tools are acknowledged as key enabler to improve the management of water infrastructures while at the same time considering interoperability, cybersecurity and governance aspects. The Horizon2020 project digital-water.city (DWC) brings to the market a series of innovations for water monitoring. New sensors enable the surveillance of key business operations such as illicit connections in stormwater networks, sewer maintenance efficiency, CSO emissions, irrigation efficiency and microbial river impacts. DWC also creates new modelling capacities for a range of uses e.g. the simulation of sewer flow, real-time assessment of water reuse risks, prediction of bathing water quality and advanced asset management strategies. Decision support systems are brought to a new level with enhanced control capacities of wastewater reuse for irrigation or integrated management of sewer networks and wastewater treatment plants. 15 digital solutions are being co-developed with the utilities of five major European urban and peri-urban areas: Paris, Berlin, Copenhagen, Milan and Sofia. An example of connecting water management to food safety is ensuring hygienic quality of treated wastewater for reuse in agricultural irrigation. DWC implements digital solutions in Milan to monitor microbial indicators in treated wastewater in near-real time. Drones are used to determine irrigation needs and a matchmaking platform brings together farmers, operators of wastewater treatment and health authorities aiming at the implementation of a sanitation safety plan and a serious game informing about the water-food-energy nexus. The same near real-time monitoring device is used in Paris and Berlin to monitor bathing water quality in surface water. In connection with low-cost temperature sensors for the detection of combined sewer overflows (CSO), overall surface water quality is improved from releasing retention capacities in sewers. The latter is also targeted by implementing improved flow forecasts from weather and radar data into hydraulic sewer models and wastewater treatment plant management as shown for Copenhagen. In Sofia, sewer infrastructure performance is improved by combining sewer inspection with sewer cleaning, plus, improving understanding of sewer hydraulics and optimization of the operational work of the utility, is aimed at with low-cost temperature sensors. With these and the other examples of digital solutions, DWC is linking utilities from major European cities and the digital and physical world

A new device for low-cost monitoring of combined sewer overflows is being deployed in large sewer networks. Data obtained will support the digitalisation of urban water systems and improve the knowledge of utilities regarding the performance of sewer networks during rainfall events. This device is only one out-of-15 innovative technologies tested within the H2020 digital-water.city innovation project., In publication process This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 820954.

Leitfaden RessourcenPlan. Ergebnisse des Projekts R2Q RessourcenPlan im Quartier, 1

The Workshop “Digitalization of Bathing Water Management” organized by Water Europe (WE), together with the Horizon 2020 project digital-water.city, the EU-LIFE project iBathWater and the Synergea project took place online on the 5th of April. It was moderated by Pascale Rouault, KWB Department Leader urban systems, Co-Leader of Water Europe’s Working Group Water & Zero Pollution. The objectives of the workshop were to: • Draw concrete policy recommendations for the ongoing revision of the Bathing Water Directive (BWD), • Explore the benefits of digital innovations such as online sensors, machine learning, processbased models and mobile apps for managing microbial safety of bathing water sites, • Promote an open-source data-driven early-warning system, which is currently developed within digital-water.city., This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 820954.

This confidential report presents business model and business plan established in M30 for each spin-off partner. Outcomes are related to WP1, WP2 and WP5 (T5.2.3). It includes a documentation of Go-No Go-decision for the creation of the spin-offs, a business plan and a global exploitation strategy. This document provides the market exploration methodology, 3 spin-off concept descriptions (customer segments, services, team organisation, etc.), their market exploration progress and results, the business plans and next steps that will be undertaken by the end of the project to create a potential new economic activity. This report and its business plans are based on work done in D5.1 “Plan for exploitation”, a market exploration mainly carried out by technology developers, and discussions between partners about the creation of potential spin-offs by the end of the project., Submitted first version (v0.1.0) to EC. To be updated in M42 (Nov. 2022)

Sewer asset management gained momentum and importance in recent years due to economic considerations, since infrastructure maintenance and rehabilitation directly represent major investments. Because physical urban water infrastructure has life expectancies of up to 100 years or more, contemporary urban drainage systems are strongly influenced by historical decisions and implementations. The current decisions taken in sewer asset management will, therefore, have a long-lasting impact on the functionality and quality of future services provided by these networks. These decisions can be supported by different approaches ranging from various inspection techniques, deterioration models to assess the probability of failure or the technical service life, to sophisticated decision support systems crossing boundaries to other urban infrastructure. This paper presents the state of the art in sewer asset management in its manifold facets spanning a wide field of research and highlights existing research gaps while giving an outlook on future developments and research areas. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

Article blog https://iwa-network.org/is-ai-the-future-of-asset-management-for-water-infrastructure/ &nbsp

Swimming is a recreational activity that takes place in natural surface waters. These waters are therefore susceptible to be contaminated by short-term pollution and so become dangerous for bathers. The current bathing water directive (2006/7/EC) demands, for such bathing sites, an efficient surveillance with monitoring and an early warning system. The aim is to prevent bathers from being exposed to pollution. The first water directives in France set out the legal thresholds that must not be surpassed, using faecal bacteria as an indicator of water pollution. E. coli are chosen as indicators of recent faecal pollution and intestinal enterococci are used to highlight older pollution. The present study proposes the future development of an Early Warning System in Paris for bathing and for the aquatic activities of the Olympic Games in 2024., This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 820954.

Digital solutions open up a variety of opportunities for the water sector. Digital water is now seen not as an ‘option’ but as an ‘imperative’ (Sarni et al., 2019) for a more sustainable and secure water management. Many solutions leverage the latest innovations developed across industries and business activities including advanced sensors, data analytics and artificial intelligence. The potential of digitalization might outweigh its associated risk if digital solutions are successfully implemented addressing a series of gaps and barriers such as ICT governance, cybersecurity, data protection, interoperability and capacity building. Within this context, the H2020 innovation project digital-water.city (DWC) aims at boosting the integrated management of waters systems in five major European cities – Berlin, Copenhagen, Milan, Paris and Sofia – by leveraging the potential of data and digital technologies. Goal is to quantify the benefits of a panel of 15 innovative digital solutions and achieve their long-term uptake and successful integration in the existing digital systems and governance processes. One of these promising technology is a new sensor for real-time bacterial measurements, manufactured by the company Fluidion (ALERT System; Angelescu et al., 2019). The device is fully autonomous, remotely controllable, installed in-situ and allows rapid quantification of E.coli and enterococci concentrations., This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 820954.

International audience

EU-Vorhaben Digital-Water.City: Digitale Tools für das Wassermanagement, This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 820954.

Zur Beantwortung der Frage, ob Stickstoffreduktion in solchen Gewässern wirtschaftlich vertretbar ist, wurde am Beispiel eines für die Norddeutsche Tiefebene charakteristischen Flusssees, der Berliner Unterhavel, untersucht, mit welchen Kosten und Nutzen das Erreichen des guten ökologischen Zustandes verbunden ist. Hierfür wurde zunächst der Status quo der Stickstoff- und Phosphoreinträge aus dem Einzugsgebiet (EZG) sowie deren Konzentration in der Berliner Unterhavel ermittelt. Darauf basierend wurde berechnet, in welchem Umfang die Einträge reduziert werden müssen, um die gewässerinterne Konzentration auf einen Wert zu senken, ab dem erwartet wird, dass sich der gute ökologische Zustand einstellt. Zielwerte für Stickstoff- und Phosphorkonzentrationen in unterschiedlichen Gewässertypen wurden in einer vorangegangenen Studie ermittelt (modifiziert nach: NITROLIMIT-Diskussionspapier Band 1, 2013; Dolman et al. 2016). Im nächsten Schritt wurden für das Einzugsgebiet der Berliner Unterhavel kosteneffiziente Stickstoffreduktionsmaßnahmen im urbanen und landwirtschaftlichen Bereich identifiziert. Schließlich wurde für verschiedene Kombinationen ausgewählter Maßnahmen ermittelt, wie hoch die Stickstoffreduktionsleistung und die entsprechenden Kosten wären, wenn sie im Einzugsgebiet der Berliner Unterhavel umgesetzt würden. Der ökonomische Nutzen wurde anhand der Zahlungsbereitschaft der Berliner und Brandenburger Bevölkerung für das Erreichen des guten ökologischen Zustandes der Berliner Unterhavel ermittelt. Die Zahlungsbereitschaft wurde in einer Umfrage erhoben, bei der auch erfasst wurde, wie häufig Gewässer zur Erholung aufgesucht und welche Aktivitäten dort am liebsten ausgeübt werden. Abschließend wurden die Kosten für Maßnahmen zur Stickstoffreduktion dem Nutzen gegenübergestellt. In diesem Diskussionspapier werden die wesentlichen Ergebnisse der Studien dargestellt. Eine ausführliche Darstellung aller Ergebnisse und methodischen Details sind im Abschlussbericht von NITROLIMIT I (2014) zu finden (S. 127-186).

Urban water journal, 16 (9), ISSN:1573-062X, ISSN:1744-9006