A holistic water ecosystem for digitisation of urban water sector

Project Information

NAIADES

Grant agreement ID: 820985

DOI

10.3030/820985

Project closed

EC signature date 3 May 2019

Start date 1 June 2019

End date 30 November 2022

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Climate action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials

Total cost

€ 5 683 253,75

EU contribution

€ 4 999 980,13

Coordinated by

ETHNIKO KENTRO EREVNAS KAI TECHNOLOGIKIS ANAPTYXIS
Greece

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - NAIADES (A holistic water ecosystem for digitisation of urban water sector)

Reporting period: 2020-12-01 to 2022-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The main challenge that will face humanity in the near future, is the lack of fresh water, mainly due to climate change and over-population of the large cities. NAIADES main goal was to create a holistic water ecosystem for digitisation of urban water sector, to address the increased need for sustainable and eco-friendly water methodologies by defining a new ICT framework.

Objectives:
Integrate the different water EU vocabularies and data developing a data-driven methodology and workflow process for rapid deployment of translational data capture tools.
Support connectivity, intelligence, actuation and control features through innovative methods and technologies for data analytics, open APIs and interoperability.
Develop an AI-driven ICT framework, AI-based models and DSS for improved water management.
Enhance end-users awareness on water consumption.
Realise a holistic security and privacy toolkit for smart water management.

Conclusions:
NAIADES redefines water management by taking into consideration issues regarding the cost, safety, complexity, vulnerability, societal acceptance, user behavior and ethics. The new tools and methodologies developed via NAIADES were proved to assist water utilities and municipalities make a better management of water resources based on informed decisions, thus supporting the digitization of water utilities and automation of procedures. Water consumption Awareness Apps and Dashboards for (i) Water Management Companies officials, (ii) Public Employees (iii) Water Consumers (i.e. young persons/schools) were developed to enhance awareness.

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

Main developments and achievements (Indicative pictures of some main products and technologies developed in NAIADES are attached. The full details of all products are included in the allocated deliverables):
•School Dashboard; tool for raising consumer awareness focusing on young ages, citizens.
•NAIADES cloud-based IoT platform with innovative aspects of interoperability, security, modularity and scalability (D2.10).
o Using FIWARE context broker and FIWARE-based data models, to guarantee interoperability.
o Security: KeyRock authentication and KSI blockchain data integrity.
o Modular and scalable: Dockerized Tools and components for easy integration.
•Water management DSS: designed and developed, consuming incoming information from the components, depending on the use case, in order to produceing actions and alerts. (D7.2 & D7.3)
•The toolkits which have been developed during the project: Data Validation Module and the DCAs.
•The nine intelligent services that have been produced.:
o Short term water demand forecast (D5.6 – see attached image 1)
o Long-term water demand forecast (D5.6 – see attached image 1)
o Anomalies detection (including dedicated solutions for leakages and saline intrusion detection (D5.2 – see attached images 2, 12)
o Water observatory (D5.8 – see attached image 3)
o Water quality forecast (D5.10 – see attached images 4, 5)
o Weather forecasting toolkit (D5.4) – see attached image 6)
o Dynamical treatments suggestion for drinking Water Treatment plants (D4.10 D4.11 – see attached image 7)
o Data Fusion Middleware (D3.7)
o Decision Support System (D7.2 & D7.3 – see attached image 1)
•Prototypes
o Water well prototype for salinity intrusion case (D3.5 - see attached image 8)
o Fountain prototype for monitoring water quality (D3.5 - see attached image 5)
o Urban box IoT prototypes for monitoring soil moisture (D3.5 - see attached image 9)
o Water truck consumption prototype and app for monitoring irrigation (D3.5 - see attached images 10, 11)

Main innovation aspects:
•NAIADES solution is based on an innovative microservices architecture which allows facile maintainability, flexibility and an improved stability of the platform.
•New models like: Model-based big data generation of critical events for water distribution system optimization; Dynamic drinking Water Treatment Support Tool; Model for Predictive AI Analytics of water quality; Chemical concentration estimation model.
•New methods like Methodology for SDGs Compliance; Methodology for failure and leakage prediction, methodologies for water demand predictions in short and long term forecasting. A long-term water demand model was developed, with the aim of forecasting the water demand needs on a monthly and yearly basis. Moreover, a short-term water demand model forecasts on a daily basis (detailed methods are provided in D5.6).

Dissemination - Exploitation:
Dissemination efforts were pursued to maximise the global outreach of NAIADES, through social media, website, newsletters, work with leading publishers (Springer), collaborations with global organisations (EC, ETSI, ITU), participation in international events (ex. Digital Around the World) and collaboration with DigitalWater2020 Cluster. NAIADES reported 30 publications while also disseminated at Standards Developing Organisations. Despite Covid-19, partners attended 19 water-related events in person. NAIADES project organized the session ‘IoT Applications for the Water Sector’ with the DigitalWater2020 cluster.
For the proper exploitation of the NAIADES developments, the most relevant exploitable results (KERs) were defined and dedicated analysis, including value proposition canvas, pitch presentations and business models were made. The exploitable results were also presented in dedicated webinar, while the project participated in IWA World Water Congress & Exhibition. Four KERs have been considered as the most promising joint commercially exploitable outcomes, as:
•Cloud based NAIADES IoT integrated platform
•AI-based solutions for the water sector
•Blockchain-based Data Interoperability Layer
•Advanced decision support tools for water end-users

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 NAIADES platform is compatible with any FIWARE-based data models (FIWARE and ETSI NGSI-LD standards). Also, it consists of an interoperable, modular, flexible, scalable and secure architecture that allows easy data sharing between NAIADES components with other NGSI-LD compatible platforms, such as smart cities.
The NAIADES solution is based on an innovative micro services architecture which allows facile maintainability, flexibility and improved stability. The overall integrated solution based on the IoT architecture provides water utilities easily accessible services to speed up decision-making due to efficient data analysis and processing.

Socio-economic impact:
Via NAIADES, water management methods used by the participating water utilities and municipality, were updated, becoming more efficient and proactive. This led to significant decrease in water losses minimizing the cost of the water distributed through the network. The saline water intrusion warning system is an important tool that by continuously monitoring the sewage network can lead to early detection providing significant cost and energy reduction capabilities which is translated to lower maintenance and running costs for the utility and lower costs for the consumer. The new technologies developed and applied in the project proved to be valuable assets leading to better management in taking immediate and informed decisions. Further, NAIADES developed School Dashboard a significant tool for raising consumer awareness and performed relevant study. These results and the demonstrated benefits have also twisted the mentality of the cities that are now more open towards the automatization and digitalization of their water sectors.

Alicante DSS usage level alerts

NAIADES water observatory

Carouge watering flowerbeds

Braila homepage and hydraulic models

Naiades logo

Braila water flow and weather historical data

Fountain manager homepage

Urban Box prototype

Dynamical treatments suggestion

Fountain prototype

NAIADES city Dashboard

Water well prototype

Water truck consumption prototype

Braila leakage detection and anomaly detection

Alicante weather prediction and historical weather data