ICT4Water

Online ICT4Water Cluster Annual Meeting 2020 on June 16

On 16 June, the ICT4Water cluster Annual meeting gathered nearly 150 professionals from the smart water community and over 30 member projects to work together on the digital transformation of the water sector. Because of the COVID-19 crisis, this year’s annual meeting took place online. The event was organised by EASME with the support from DG CONNECT and comprised of presentations from keynote speakers and interactive panel discussions. The host of the event was  Sotirios Kanellopoulos, EASME Project adviser H2020 Eco-innovation.

In her welcome speech, Carmen Mena Abela (EASME Head of Sector Eco-Innovation). noted that “a lot has been achieved in the last year, but the momentum is even more favourable for the ICT4Water cluster”. ICT4Water projects are employing digital solutions as a means to achieve a greener value chain in water management, agriculture and water-intense industries. Thus the twin digital and green transitions embraced by Europe are the core of the cluster’s mission. She underlined that the cluster fits perfectly in the COVID recovery plan but it will also need to adapt to the new objectives of the Commission and need to continue delivering tangible results contributing to the welfare of the people in Europe and the environment.

The event hosted several presentations and panel discussions, grouped in three sessions:

1) ICT4Water in the EU policy context

2) ICT4Water and COVID-19

3) ICT4Water, Action Plan and Action Groups

You can read more these session further in this newsletter or on the ICT4Water website.

ICT4Water

ICT4Water, Action Plan and Action Groups

During the Cluster annual meeting, the leaders of the seven Action Groups of the cluster, Franck Le Gall (EGM), Christos Makropoulos (NTUA), Aitor Corchero (Eurecat), Theodora Tsikrika (ITI), Eva Martinez (AQUALIA), Floor Brouwer (Wageningen Research) and Richard Elelman (Eurecat), participated in a panel and discussed on “ICT4Water cluster in support of new EU priorities”. The panel was moderated by Sotirios Kanellopoulos.

Each of the Action Group leaders gave an update of their Action Group, as outlined in the Action Plan, and presented their plans, activities, and results for the coming period. The conclusion of this panel was that presenting the results of the work of the Action Groups in the form of white papers is a good way of reaching a broad audience. Next to that, it was recognised that the cluster should work on strengthening their linkage and collaboration with their key stakeholders, being policy makers on all levels, SMEs and industry, the general public and the water research community itself, to ensure maximum impact of the work done by the cluster projects. The Action Groups have worked individually on their respective topics and we will keep you posted about their progress and results.

ICT4Water

ICT4Water in the EU policy context

During the Cluster annual meeting, policy makers from DG Environment (Tobias Biermann), DG Energy (Anne Katherina Weidenbach) DG Climate Action (Andras Toth) and DG CONNECT (Andrea Halmos) sat in a panel to discuss about the “ICT4Water cluster in support of new EU priorities”. The panel was moderated by Dragan Savic, CEO of KWR Water Research Institute.

The conclusion of this panel was that within the different DGs water is in the radar and this is reflected in their policies and directives. EU-funded platforms like FIWARE are consulted during the development of new policies. It was made clear that not all proposals from the Commission are adopted without changes by the European Parliament and the Council. For example, for the new Drinking Water Directive the Commission proposed a monthly reporting period, while member states opted for a yearly reporting period. It was also pointed out that the main barrier for adopting climate mitigating measures by member states is siloed thinking.

Panellists probed the audience with questions via sli.do getting some noteworthy replies in return. For example, in response to the question “Digitalization of which part of the water sector contributes mostly in Energy efficiency?” 48% replied “Water distribution” while 36% “Waste Water treatment”. Trying to interpret the results, perhaps the former case points to efficiency due to energy savings while the later case to energy efficiency due to energy recovery from waste water.

PrimeWater

Enhancing Earth Observation data and other Copernicus sectoral services.

Advances in Earth Observation can be a catalyst to promote technological innovation in Integrated Water Resources Management, by providing a sustainable and effective way for monitoring inland waters, but also by increasing adaptive capacity and building resilience to hydro-ecological hazards when combined with modelling applications.

The EU funded PrimeWater project is adding value to EO data and other Copernicus sectoral services. This is through cross-cutting research, using state of the art process-based and data-driven modelling for predicting hydrological extremes and water quality issues such as Harmful Algae Bloom events in lakes and reservoirs. The aim is to improve the skill of hydro-ecological forecasts and their related impact at different spatial and temporal scales, by integrating satellite imaging spectrometry into the modelling chain through advanced Data Assimilation techniques and Machine Learning algorithms.

Sewers4COVID

Important role for sewage surveillance in the fight against COVID-19

A dream team of 15 professionals from five different institutes spread across four countries has won the #EUvsVIRUS Hackathon with their solution named Sewers4COVID. The Hackathon was an initiative organised in April by the European Commission aimed to connect civil society, innovators, partners and investors from all over the world to develop innovative solutions for coronavirus related challenges. The team members, who know each other from the cluster project Sim4Nexus, combined different skills like microbiology, AI and data analysis. In only 60 hours they went from idea to presenting a working prototype.