Towards the water infrastructures of the future

Expected Outcome:Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:water infrastructures are flexible enough to face changes in hydraulic flow and pollution load from emerging or yet unknown contaminants to ensure that access to water and sanitation is protected on a long-term, recovery of safe secondary resources is secured and greenhouse gas emissions are reduced and ecosystems are protected;water infrastructures have integrated digital solutions (e.g., smart sensors, IoT, digital twins and artificial intelligence) as well as citizen science to optimally operate in changing conditions from climate or pollution pressures, facilitate appropriate water pricing based on reliable monitoring of water consumption, favour recovery of material and limit greenhouse gas emissions;water infrastructures have incorporated the necessary tools and protection to avoid cyber and/or terrorist attacks to ensure their resilience against malicious behaviour;new or renewed water infrastructures are designed following ‘good practices’ to maximise system resilience, build redundancy, and ensure ecological and social sustainability;water infrastructures are better designed thanks to improved predictions, robust assessment of impacts and implementation of appropriate mitigation measures due to advances on the understanding of how, when and where floods and droughts occur. Scope:Water infrastructures both for drinking water supply and wastewater collection and treatment suffer from a lack of sufficient and continuous investment across Europe. Their conditions are evolving differently depending on the investment capacity of local authorities and/or water companies, as well as the climate and pollution conditions they are exposed to. They are often not flexible enough to adapt to a changing and increasingly unpredictable environment and lack of appropriate monitoring to properly understand their functioning in various operating conditions. On the treatment si