Digital-Water.City - leading urban water management to its digital future
digital-water.city’s (DWC) main goal is to boost the integrated management of waters systems in five major European urban and peri-urban areas, Berlin, Milan, Copenhagen, Paris and Sofia, by leveraging the potential of data and smart digital technologies. DWC will create linkages between the digital and the physical worlds by developing and demonstrating 18 advanced digital solutions to address current and future water-related challenges; namely the protection of human health, the increase of performance and return on investment of water infrastructures and the involvement of citizens in urban water management. Areas of application of DWC digital solutions range from groundwater management, sewer maintenance and operation, wastewater treatment and reuse to urban bathing water management. DWC combines cutting-edge digital technologies such as augmented reality, open source software, cloud computing, real-time sensors, artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and decision support systems. DWC integrates the development of digital solutions in a dedicated guiding protocol to cover the existing gaps regarding ICT governance, interoperability, ontology and cybersecurity. Ultimately, DWC will provide an interoperable free flow of information among stakeholders and across the water value chain. DWC will generate the necessary conditions for co-creation and open innovation by the establishment of Community of Practices aiming at integrating stakeholder knowledge, ensuring the transferability of the digital solutions in other European or international contexts, supporting knowledge transfer beyond DWC and creating durable binding between European cities. The large scale assessment and communication of the benefits provided by the digital solutions in five major cities will serve as lighthouse, raising the awareness of European cities for a necessary digital transformation, and opening new market opportunities for DWC partners and European providers of digital solutions.