Holistic Surface Water and Groundwater Management for Sustainable Cities

Project Information

Water4Cities

Grant agreement ID: 734409

DOI

10.3030/734409

Project closed

EC signature date 4 November 2016

Start date 1 March 2017

End date 30 September 2021

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 1 242 000,00

EU contribution

€ 1 242 000,00

Coordinated by

PANEPISTIMIO THESSALIAS
Greece

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - Water4Cities (Holistic Surface Water and Groundwater Management for Sustainable Cities)

Reporting period: 2019-03-01 to 2021-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Problem: Rapid urbanization, intensified agriculture and industry combined with water scarcity and climate change pressures that include long drought periods or extreme storm water events and diminishing fresh water supplies, set water quantity and quality monitoring as an imperative component of an efficient urban water management scheme. Worldwide, policy instruments, such as the EC Water Framework Directive and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Water Management Plans and Best Practices are applying pressure to authorities of all levels to actually implement such innovative solutions. However, the deployment of advanced high-quality real-time monitoring activities in urban settings is not yet achieved due to several reasons including: i) difficulties in collecting precise and robust monitoring data; ii) standardization issues that prohibit interoperability and iii) use of simple data mining and data visualization techniques that do not fully exploit the value of data collected.

Impact to society: The Water4Cities project targeted multiple stakeholders at city level. The national ministries and agencies (for finance, energy, development, tourism etc.) could benefit from the results of the Water4Cities project by getting new tools to analyze water resources at a given region and support policy coordination and guidance and improve water management services in the country. The authorities (regional, local) can obtain further information and knowledge that will guide the implementation of practices aiming at the sustainable exploitation of water in line with high consumers’ water services in their respective region the national and the EU legislative and institutional framework and reduce water stresses associated with climate change, while generating business opportunities for SMEs. The public/private utility companies (water/electricity suppliers, utility engineers etc.) benefit from lower operating costs, cost-effective and environmental-friendly practices, and improvement in their water services overall regime and gain further information and knowledge about present and future decisions for water sustainability issues.

Objectives: The Water4Cities project developed Information and Communications Technology (ICT) tools that enable water utilities, authorities and other relevant stakeholders to a) monitor in real-time critical urban water resources parameters; b) support their decisions for optimal urban water management of minimal environmental impact and c) involve policy makers, corporations and public to provide support for sound and balanced decision-making. The Water4Cities project contributes to a sustainable management of urban water by relying on three main innovation pillars: i) the design of a holistic integrated methodology for urban surface water and groundwater monitoring and management; ii) the construction of a beyond the state-of-the-art data collection and analysis mechanism for urban water monitoring and prediction; iii) the enablement of visualization of water related data for sustainable urban water management.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the second reporting period, the Water4Cities partners have focused on the development of the Water4Cities tools and their integration and validation in the context of the two use cases considered in the project. Training and dissemination activities have continued, mainly focus on online activities due to the restriction of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results of projects have been documented in nine deliverables, contributing in the fulfilment of the project milestones. In addition (split) secondments with a total duration of ~150 months have taken place during this period, aligned with a number of training and dissemination activities, aiming to maximize the impact of secondments and facilitate transfer of knowledge among the Water4Cities partners.

Main results achieved in the second reporting period are:
i) Nine deliverables produced presenting the results of the projects:
D4.1 Report and software prototype for data collection, cleaning and fusion framework
D4.2 Report and software prototype for data analytics algorithms and tools.
D4.3 Report and software prototype for data visualization algorithms and tools. (Final Version)
D6.1 Water4Cities Test and Evaluation Plan
D5.1 Water4Cities Integrated System
D1.3 Second Periodic Progress Report
D6.2 Report on pilot operation and evaluation
D7.2 Business models and sustainability plans
D7.3 Report on Community building and engagement
ii) Four webinars delivered by the Water4Cities partners and their collaborators reaching internal and external stakeholders.
iii) Two poster presentations in international and national events with high impact;
iv) Six papers accepted in international conferences and journals;
v) Two special sessions organized as part of international conferences.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project has delivered decision support tools addressing stakeholders' needs in two main scenarios, rain water management addressing urban planners, local/national authorities and citizens, and smart supply water management addressing water utilities, local/national authorities and citizens. The offered tools incorporate innovative features in terms of data collection, analytics and visualization.

The prototype delivered for Ljubljana case study uses the Urban District Sub-Catchment (UDSC) as an urban area unit that encompasses critical properties of the urban area for modelling, monitoring and visualizing the critical variables. In this context, the Urban District Sub-Catchment (UDSC) represents in the prototype a basic (static) unit for sensor data collection, modelling of urban water runoff, modelling of (Nature-Based Solutions) NBS locations as well as the basic modelling unit for visualization. The basic parameters that are calculated and displayed by the tool are i) current/future land use; ii) rain data; iii) soil type and climate changes; and iv) rain infiltration/runoff. For each pillar, selected parameters are calculated and visualized through appropriate tools (treemap diagrams, plots etc.) to support rain water data analysis from decision makers.

The prototype delivered for Skiathos case study constitutes a smart tool for urban water supply management, essential for optimizing the WDN operation according to the IWA guidelines, especially for supply systems that depict intense seasonality and spatial variability (regarding altitude, or urban land uses). The prototype incorporates machine learning algorithms and data collection tools to allow real-time data monitoring and processing. Of particular interest, in terms of the techniques used in W4C, is the visualisation of the IWA water balance standard, used in the DEYASK prototype.

Furthermore, the close collaboration of researchers in this multi-disciplinary field contributes in stronger industry-academia collaborations in the area of water management. At international level, Water4Cities contributed in enhancing transfer of knowledge between EU and third country research organizations such as IBM, settled in USA.

LUZ Pilot Prototype

Skiathos Pilot Prototype