The world population living in urban settlements is expected to increase to 70% of 9.7 billion by 2050. Historically, as cities grew, new water infrastructures followed as needed. However, these developments had less to do with real planning than with reacting to crisis situations and urgent needs, due to the inability of urban water planners to consider long-term, deeply uncertain and ambiguous factors affecting urban development and water demand. These, coupled with increasingly uncertain climate conditions, indicate the need for a more holistic and intelligent decision-making framework for managing water infrastructures in the cities of the future. This project aims to develop a new theoretical framework for the allocation and development decisions on drinking water infrastructure systems, so that they are socially equitable, economically efficient and environmentally resilient, as advocated by the UN Agenda 2030, Sustainable Development Goals. The framework will integrate real-time monitoring and control with long-term robustness and flexibility-based pathway methods, and incorporate economic, social, ethical and environmental considerations for sustainable transitioning of urban water systems under deep uncertainty with multiple possible futures. The Water-Futures team will build on synergies from the four research groups, transcending methodologies from water science, systems and control theory, economics and decision science, and machine learning, into an integrated decision and control framework, to be implemented as an open-source research toolbox. The new science outcomes will be applied to three case studies exemplifying different types of urban water systems: a mature, relatively stable system; a mature and rapidly expanding system; and a relatively recent supply system in a developing country with high growth and special challenges, including limited resources, intermittent supply and high water losses.

AQUARIUS proposes disruptive improvements in laser based water sensing employing MIR quantum cascade lasers (QCLs). It is motivated by i) the EC Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) where hydrocarbons are identified as priority hazardous substances, ii) the industrial and regulatory need for fast and continuous detection of contaminants and iii) the current state-of-the-art of measuring these substances using QCLs as defined by project partner QuantaRed Technologies and described in ASTM D7678. AQUARIUS will improve this offline method by developing pervasive online and inline sensing strategies based on advanced photonic structures. For improved specificity a broadly (200 cm-1) tunable MOEMS based µEC-QCL source will be developed into a core spectrometer. High power, mode-hop free operation and unprecedentedly fast data acquisition (1000 spectra/s) will assure high S/N-ratios and thus high sensitivity. The system for online sensing (LOD: 1ppm) is based on automated liquid-liquid extraction and will be validated by project partner OMV for process and waste water monitoring. It will also be tested for identifying different sources of contaminations by project partner KWR in their water treatment and purification facilities. The system for inline sensing will be based on integrated optical circuits (IOC) including waveguides for evanescent wave sensing. Switching between individual waveguides of the IOC will enable quasi-simultaneous sample and background measurement and thus assure excellent long-term stability. By enrichment of analytes in polymer layers LODs as required for drinking (0.5ppb) and groundwater (50ppb) will be reached. AQUARIUS covers the supply chain from research institutes to system integrator and end users. It will push the online system from TRL 3 to 7 and the inline system from TRL 2 to 4 and thus reinforce the industrial leadership of the project partners regarding QCL based liquid sensing and photonic components (source, detector and IOCs).

In response to the increasing problem of water shortage, the reuse of treated urban wastewater is considered the most suitable and reliable alternative for sustainable water management and agricultural development. In spite of the benefits associated with this practice, major concerns currently exist, related to the adverse effects regarding chemical and biological contaminants of emerging concern such as antibiotics and mobile antibiotic resistance elements such as antibiotic resistant bacteria and resistance genes. These are now considered as a serious public health problem by various international organizations and the European Commission, because of their spread in the environment, the food chain, drinking water, etc. To tackle these problems, scientists with an interdisciplinary research/training background are urgently needed. This ETN will train a new generation of ESRs to address the risks associated with such contaminants and wastewater reuse. Innovative chemical, microbiological, toxicological and modelling tools, and novel process engineering will form the scientific and training core of their innovative research projects and training. The project will contribute to understanding the fate and transmission of antibiotics and resistance from wastewater to the environment and humans, through soil, ground/surface water and crops. Relevant ELVs will be determined, essential for the development and implementation of regulatory frameworks. This project directly tackles these aspects, by bringing together a multidisciplinary research team, with the private sector, and policy makers and through communication activities towards stakeholders and the wider public.

IDEATION (InlanD watErs in the digitAl Twin OceaN) aims to prepare the development of the digital twin of the inland waters (rivers, lakes, reservoirs, wetlands, snow, and ice) addressing activities to be developed and to make it integrated and interoperable with the DTO for a unified digital twin of ocean and waters (addressing the hydrosphere as a whole). IDEATION will be based on a cross-border cooperation, involvement, and commitment of stakeholders at European level by following the Water-oriented Living Labs (WoLLs) approach. Stakeholders will be engaged via Multi-Stakeholder Forums (MSF), using a range of different engagement methodologies (e.g., focus groups, workshops, interviews, questionnaires) depending on goals of the engagement and specificities of the context. A comprehensive review will be performed to make an open knowledge inventory for inland water systems (OpenKIWAS). IDEATION will co-design the IDEATION reference architecture defining a set of building blocks, interfaces and standards to make data, models and technologies interoperable and integrable with the DTO. Putting together all the results from the MSF, OpenKIWAS, and the IDEATION reference architecture, a roadmap for the integration of inland waters in the Digital Twin Ocean will be created providing a preliminary breakdown of the work, with priorities of implementation, into a stepped approach. The consortium members have high experience on EU project coordination and participation, the majority of them already worked together in research projects.