Environment and Sustainable Development Key Action: "Sustainable Management and Quality of Water"
CityNet
The Network of European Research Projects on Integrated Urban Water Management
1
WHAT?
Summary
What is CityNet?
CityNet is a cluster of six ongoing projects funded by the European Commission under the 5th Community Research Programme, dealing with urban water issues, which includes 47 R&D institutions and 56 end-users across Europe.
Mutually beneficial input and output transfers between the six projects are for example:
infiltration of groundwater into sewers (APUSS) reduces water resources and influences wastewater streams, while exfiltration might be the cause of aquifer pollution (AISUWRS); all these may cause a reduction in the operational efficiency of wastewater treatment performance and pollution of receiving waters (CD4WC); similar impacts to the deterioration of wastewater treatment and receiving waters could be caused by inadequate stormwater management (DayWater). In conjunction with work on addressing these issues, improved approaches in strategic rehabilitation of urban water supply (CARE-W) as well as sewer systems (CARE-S) come to provide additional tools for maintaining crucial and desirable operational, environmental and social efficiency.
The cluster aims to:
Understand, describe, analyse and provide decision support for a problem-oriented, cost-efficient, and sustainable urban water management in European cities, including their water resources, technical infrastructure and management challenges.
Form a network of excellence and expertise bringing together the necessary critical mass of research excellence capable of contributing to the discussions and orientations on research needs in urban water management at European Union level, including governmental and administrative bodies.
Link individual projects and integrated cluster activities to other ongoing European, international and national research projects.
Position the partners & outcomes of the individual projects and the cluster for application and commercialisation in Europe and world wide.
Reports and standard protocols describing how to apply new methods and techniques to measure infiltration and exfiltration rates in both sewer systems and house connections;
Reports on and demonstration of models to simulate infiltration and exfiltration rates at different space and time scales;
Decision support for data requirements and investment strategies, including performance indicators;
Case studies in which application and use of above results will be exemplified.
Application and use of the above products will enable end-users and operators to evaluate accurately infiltration and exfiltration rates of their sewer systems, through combination of field measurements and models, and to account for this information in the evaluation of the performance of their systems and in the definition of investment strategies.
AISUWRS
The final product of the project will be an innovative Urban water and contaminant balance modeling tool including:
Modeling of exfiltration rates for water, sewer and stormwater pipelines,
Determination of Pipeline lifecycle costing methodologies,
Field studies for model validation and calibration,
Development of new urban water management tools and innovative decision support systems (DSS),
Socio-economic model performance assessment.
Major products of the project will be the software models and a handbook.
The AISUWRS initiative will be one important step towards identifying and developing systems and technologies that could improve the cost effectiveness of urban water services whilst maintaining ecological sustainability.
2a
AND SO WHAT?
Results
CD4WC
The final product of the project will be a innovative guidance and decision support system for operators of urban wastewater systems based on an integrated approach.
A procedure for the analysis of European wastewater systems will be developed and various options for the development of urban wastewater systems will be analysed and assessed. One major result will be the quantification of cost savings due to increased degrees of freedom induced by the WFD approach.
The practice of European water management will profit from the results of CD4WC in the sense that a basis for decision making is provided to improve the wastewater management and the associated cost/benefit ratio.
The outcomes of the project will be disseminated on a training course which includes the publication of the gathered knowledge on a CD that will be freely available at the course. Thus, the CD4WC project will contribute to the sustainable and cost-effective development of urban wastewater systems in the future.
CARE-S
The final product of the project will be a Decision Support System for sewer and stormwater network rehabilitation, including:
a control panel of Performance Indicators (PI) relevant for rehabilitation decisions,
analytical and statistical tools to assess and forecast some of the PIs
a procedure to choose the right rehabilitation technology,
a procedure to define the best planning strategy for rehabilitation investments, and
a software package, called "Sewer Rehab Manager" that will enable consultants and wastewater service providers to use the above tools according to their individual needs and available data base.
The prototype and a handbook, ready to be used and to be commercialised, will be available after the project is finished.
Application of the CARE-S procedure will enable the decision maker to direct investments such that the right pipe is rehabilitated at the right time using the right technology. The benefits will include substantial cost savings, reduced disturbances and improved sewer and drainage service.
2b
AND SO WHAT?
Results
CARE-W
The final product of the project will be a Decision Support System for rehabilitation including:
a control panel of Performance Indicators (PI) for rehabilitation,
a procedure to define the best choice for annual rehabilitation programming,
a procedure to define the best strategy for long term planning of rehabilitation investments
a software, called "prototype" in the following of the proposition, that will allow to use the above products with the data existing in the respective water utility.
Major products of the project will be the prototype and a handbook.
Application of the CARE-W procedure will enable the decision maker to direct investments such that the right pipe is rehabilitated at the right time. The benefits will include substantial cost savings, reduced disturbances and improved water supply service.
DayWater
It is known that a considerable amount of funds will be invested in the management of stormwater in urban areas in the forthcoming years. Both peak flows and environmental quality have to be controlled. The ADSS will assist the identification of the most sustainable and cost-effective solutions for a range of urban situations. End-users play an active role in field testing, therefore the core end-user group will be extended during the project, enabling the dissemination of DayWater products on a larger scale within Europe. The DayWater project deals with the availability and use of technological progress for the benefit of society. Significant efforts are put into the analysis of how technological information can be used in decision-making processes.
At the end of the project all European stakeholders will have access to the ADSS, a sum of state-of-the-art knowledge, decision support tools, methods and data. They will be able to introduce the most attractive elements to their decision making process, thus applying the best techniques. This means optimising the investment costs of water management and minimising the risks.
CityNet - The Network of European research projects on integrated urban water management
