Periodic Reporting for period 2 - WQeMS (Copernicus Assisted Lake Water Quality Emergency Monitoring Service)
Reporting period: 2022-04-01 to 2023-06-30
Water is the elixir of life on Planet Earth, being equally fundamental for humans and ecosystems. It nourishes our ecosystems, powers the industry, supports the food production and makes the life on Earth possible. A major global challenge is to sustain its drinking quality at sufficient quantities. To this end, the Sustainable Development Goal 6 set by the United Nations, stresses the need for access to clean water and sanitation for all people. At an EU level, the Water Framework Directive (WFD) is the most significant directive concerning the protection and management of water bodies accompanied by the Nitrates Directive and the Drinking Water Directive.
Among the water sources (standing, running, ground and sea water) that the industry uses to produce drinking water, the surface standing water (being a major contributor) offers a unique opportunity to showcase Copernicus monitoring services. WQeMS provides an operational Water Quality Emergency Monitoring Service to the water utilities industry in relation with the quality of the “water we drink”. Exploiting Sentinel data (and in cases Very High Resolution data), it provides quality monitoring of open surface water reservoirs valorized for the delivery of drinking water at a fine spatial resolution. It focuses on slow and fast developing phenomena by offering Continuous Monitoring for a specified area; Alert Notifications in case some water quality parameter thresholds values are exceeded and in case water related issues are detected through social media; and On-demand Mapping with one-off geospatial maps of a selected area at a requested date. Service components comprise of Harmful Algal Bloom detection, Water Quality Features Changes monitoring, Extreme events detection and Land Water transition zone mapping; accompanied by horizontally offered auxiliary tools, such as crowdsourcing dashboard and capacity building.
WQeMS is suggested as a candicate EMS Service Component, designed to exploit EO, non-EO, social media and crowdsourcing capabilities to generate new products for the EMS Portfolio.
Among the water sources (standing, running, ground and sea water) that the industry uses to produce drinking water, the surface standing water (being a major contributor) offers a unique opportunity to showcase Copernicus monitoring services. WQeMS provides an operational Water Quality Emergency Monitoring Service to the water utilities industry in relation with the quality of the “water we drink”. Exploiting Sentinel data (and in cases Very High Resolution data), it provides quality monitoring of open surface water reservoirs valorized for the delivery of drinking water at a fine spatial resolution. It focuses on slow and fast developing phenomena by offering Continuous Monitoring for a specified area; Alert Notifications in case some water quality parameter thresholds values are exceeded and in case water related issues are detected through social media; and On-demand Mapping with one-off geospatial maps of a selected area at a requested date. Service components comprise of Harmful Algal Bloom detection, Water Quality Features Changes monitoring, Extreme events detection and Land Water transition zone mapping; accompanied by horizontally offered auxiliary tools, such as crowdsourcing dashboard and capacity building.
WQeMS is suggested as a candicate EMS Service Component, designed to exploit EO, non-EO, social media and crowdsourcing capabilities to generate new products for the EMS Portfolio.
Internationally acknowedged and proven techniques from the market and EU projects are interweaved in a functional schema of data, methods, and information technology; guaranteeing replicability potential of the innovation. It includes a set of features allowing water experts and developers to integrate its functionalities into existing DSSs, as well as to improve current methods and test alternative solutions. Functionalities include APIs for service execution requests, alerts configuration and retrieval, generation of reports, and data product and statistics. Open Geospatial Consortium Web Services endpoints are employed. Further demonstration areas have been already served with success.
The main aspects characterizing WQeMS can be briefly summarized as being a tool a) providing accurate products integrating local measurements and existing archives for validation, reference and calibration; b) allowing for water quality monitoring and risk management assimilating freely available satellite data (also commercial VHR data) with an increased spatial and time coverage; and c) smoothly adaptable to new areas with limited effort. Product generation automation is offered, both in the case of continuously monitored water surfaces and in the case of on-demand service requests. Products and services utilize widely adopted semantics, metadata and quality descirption standards, and are interoperable with any operational Decision Support System of water utilities (adopting at the same time Copernicus and GEOSS principles). The legislative framework, ethics’ aspects, and European Framework Directives have been acknowledged, establishing the operational framework conditions. Feedback, crowdsourcing, alerting, and reporting are automated. Partners from industry, research, and governance worked hand in hand for service development. Business model canvas are outlined.
Communication with stakeholders at various levels revealed the alignment of knowledge generation workflows with state-of-the-art technologies and scientific developments. The modular architecture and compliance with international standards were recognized as facilitating user understanding and adoption of WQeMS services. There was high interest from the water sector in Earth Observation-based monitoring solutions, highlighting the underexploited potential of Copernicus-era capabilities. Discussions also emphasized the need for incorporating EO data-derived estimations into EU legislation and directives to facilitate market acceptance and widespread adoption of WQeMS tools and services.
The main aspects characterizing WQeMS can be briefly summarized as being a tool a) providing accurate products integrating local measurements and existing archives for validation, reference and calibration; b) allowing for water quality monitoring and risk management assimilating freely available satellite data (also commercial VHR data) with an increased spatial and time coverage; and c) smoothly adaptable to new areas with limited effort. Product generation automation is offered, both in the case of continuously monitored water surfaces and in the case of on-demand service requests. Products and services utilize widely adopted semantics, metadata and quality descirption standards, and are interoperable with any operational Decision Support System of water utilities (adopting at the same time Copernicus and GEOSS principles). The legislative framework, ethics’ aspects, and European Framework Directives have been acknowledged, establishing the operational framework conditions. Feedback, crowdsourcing, alerting, and reporting are automated. Partners from industry, research, and governance worked hand in hand for service development. Business model canvas are outlined.
Communication with stakeholders at various levels revealed the alignment of knowledge generation workflows with state-of-the-art technologies and scientific developments. The modular architecture and compliance with international standards were recognized as facilitating user understanding and adoption of WQeMS services. There was high interest from the water sector in Earth Observation-based monitoring solutions, highlighting the underexploited potential of Copernicus-era capabilities. Discussions also emphasized the need for incorporating EO data-derived estimations into EU legislation and directives to facilitate market acceptance and widespread adoption of WQeMS tools and services.
As water companies look to secure water production and cut costs, some of their processes are still at a very early stage of development. As an example, the management of changes in raw water quality at the plant intake is still based on empirical knowledge and is triggered by few local data (principally monitored at the plant intake). WQeMS provides frequent, wide-area-covering across the water body and accurate estimates for selected water quality variables. Main innovative elements comprise of the a) use of multi-sensor-fusion technologies, b) spatial and temporal resolution, and product consistency, c) treatment of small (also uneven shaped) open surface water reservoirs, d) minimization and documentation of uncertainty, e) compliance with ontology and semantics of water quality supporting regulations, f) metadata tool documentation, g) interoperability with existing Decision Support Systems and multiple DIAS, h) cloud based micro-services structure, i) federated approach, enabling further service providers to expand WQeMS service portfolio.
Service components directly relate with climate risks, e.g. floods, droughts, leading to raw water availability and quality changes; and population exposure risk, e.g. health security, caused by fluctuation of the drinking water quality or living environment degradation. WQeMS supports drinking water managing authorities and key production actors in the sector to comply, among others, with the EU Water Framework and Drinking Water Directives. The project envisages to further support EU policy implementation across existing DSSs, and actions to develop adapted Water Safety Plans (e.g. for the identification of risks). It facilitates the information flow to the water authorities (end users), thanks to inclusion of co-design and co-creation procedures. By communicating exactly what is required and, in the way it is required makes possible to timely inform about an emergency across different devices or receptors. This enhances additionally social acceptance of and trust to common practices in water monitoring at the local, national, and EU levels.
Service components directly relate with climate risks, e.g. floods, droughts, leading to raw water availability and quality changes; and population exposure risk, e.g. health security, caused by fluctuation of the drinking water quality or living environment degradation. WQeMS supports drinking water managing authorities and key production actors in the sector to comply, among others, with the EU Water Framework and Drinking Water Directives. The project envisages to further support EU policy implementation across existing DSSs, and actions to develop adapted Water Safety Plans (e.g. for the identification of risks). It facilitates the information flow to the water authorities (end users), thanks to inclusion of co-design and co-creation procedures. By communicating exactly what is required and, in the way it is required makes possible to timely inform about an emergency across different devices or receptors. This enhances additionally social acceptance of and trust to common practices in water monitoring at the local, national, and EU levels.