We Are Water Foundation

The concept of smart city refers to the urban concentrations that apply technological solutions to areas such as mobility, information and communication technology (ICT), energy consumption, waste management, logistics and urban planning in order to achieve sustainable development and improve the quality of life of their inhabitants.

Two international events were held during last November and December based on this concept of city: the Intelligent Cities Expo in Hamburg and the Smart City Expo & World Congress in Barcelona. The aim of both exhibitions was to bring together international representatives of public administrations, companies, professionals from the sector and experts to discuss the diverse current programmes of implementing smart solutions and how to obtain financial resources for them.

Both events made their debuts in 2011. The Hamburg expo is of an itinerant nature and the next one in 2012 will be held in San Francisco; the Smart City Expo in Barcelona will be held in the Catalan capital annually and organised by the Fira de Barcelona.

The importance that urban centres have in the sustainability of the planet are clear to see in the latest reports by the UN that point out that in 2050, 75% of the entire world population will be living in urban areas due to the constant exodus of the rural population to the cities in the currently emerging countries; while in the more economically developed countries they have reached the conclusion that the current model of growth and functioning of the cities, particularly in a context of long-term crisis, is unsustainable in all senses.

Waste water: a basic element in smart urban sustainability

The importance of water in today's problem of cities was clearly shown in the Stockholm Water Week (see newsletter of 13 September 2011) and in the conference titled "Water in the Green Economy in Practice: towards Río +20", held in Zaragoza (see newsletter of 16 December). At both events talks were given and debates held about this question.

In Hamburg, the first day of the Intelligent Cities Expo involved the session about Smart Water and the infrastructure of waste waters. The debate was led by professor Per Arne Malmqvist of the SIWI (Stockholm International Water Institute) and was focused on the new technologies in managing urban water and how the cities can encourage a cultural change in the perception of the value of water. The wide range of technical questions included economic incentives that can be found in developing installations, to the development of smart systems of detection of leaks and chemical alteration of water, as well as the development of systems for obtaining biogas from waste waters.

Malmqvist referred to the prizes that the SIWI has instigated to promote solutions to the diverse problems of drinking water and how these have influenced in raising awareness of young people in the search for solutions. The session clearly showed how water, which in many cities is already a limited resource, obliges us to consider alternative solutions, such as semi-decentralised administrative systems and conservation and reuse.

It also showed how the new procedures of capturing rainwater and desalination are becoming a key factor in the development of future solutions for the planet's large cities. On a larger scale, the integration of the water and waste water systems with the production of energy (biogas, electricity, heating and refrigeration) must fully deal with the concept of the smart city; in the same way, the nutrients present in waste water and organic waste from homes and industry must be used as fertilisers in agriculture.

The debate showed that the technical solutions are now accessible, although new technological solutions are constantly appearing. The challenge today is to involve administrations, companies, institutions and the general public in implementing the necessary developments.

Urban water management, the main subject in Barcelona

In the Smart City Expo in Barcelona, urban water was the focus of the Smart Water Management debate, chaired by Fernando Rayón from AGBAR. Experts spoke such as Guillermo Pickering, President of the AG National Association of Companies of Sanitary Services from Chile; Ricardo Klatovsky, Vice-president of Energy & Utilities Southwest Europe at IBM; Albert Molina, Managing Director of Adasa, an engineering company specialising in sectorial solutions and technologies applied to the full water cycle and the environment, and Dr. A. Ravindra, minister for urban affairs of the Honourable Chief Minister of the state of Karnataka in India.

All the participants stressed the need for an integrating and global vision of the new urban models that are required in order to advance towards more innovative cities that are more aware of sustainability and its systems, which is patently clear in the question of water. Smart urban management translates into better decision-making processes through a technology that involves not only the most sophisticated companies or the large cities, but also any urban or rural setting that wants to extend its possibilities in order to provide greater quality of life to its citizens.

The decisive role of ICT

The supply of water to the millions of people who live in cities and the industries that surround them causes increasingly more problems and in many cases is being seriously threatened. At both events the decisive role that information and communication technologies (ICT) will play in the smart management of water was clearly shown, and will constitute a key policy in the coming decades.

The ICT cover a wide range of resources that include tele-detection by satellite in combination with semantic web sensors, as well as geographic information systems (GIS), and information treatment systems that enable its management in real time via communication networks.

Beyond the importance that these technologies have in the sphere of hydric resources in general, in the particular case of large cities they enable us to advance towards and integrated management which in turn enables us, generally, to save water, prevent accidents through too much pressure, avoid flooding and detect breakdowns in real time.
The early alarm systems, for example, are already being successfully applied to control the flow of rivers, controlling the levels of the retention systems such as dykes and supervising their structural integrity to prevent possible accidents. A similar system is being implemented in water management projects in smart cities. The ICT can also provide people and companies with instant information about their own water consumption, thus increasing awareness about its use, locating leaks and providing better control over the demand for water.

In cities where the supply is affected by climatic irregularity, digitalization systems of the hydrologic and geographic information provided by satellites enables the production of compound maps that show the suitable locations for constructing artificial refill structures. For example, in Australia, in 2008, the artificial refill of aquifers contributed to the supply of irrigation water with 45 gigalitres and the supply of urban water with 7 gigalitres.

Additionally, the technology of smart water meters allows the supplier companies to undergo a more precise monitoring of use at the level of end consumer, and to implement metering plans to promote water protection. The home consumer will be able to monitor their water consumption via internet while also controlling their bill. In the cities of developed countries it is estimated that this technology can achieve savings of as much as 10% of consumption; in the cities of developing countries, the most affected in many cases due to the lack of water, the saving may reach 50%.

About the We Are Water Foundation

The We Are Water Foundation, promoted by the Roca company, aims, on the one hand, to raise awareness among the general public and the administrations about the need to encourage a new culture of water in the world and, on the other hand, to alleviate the negative effects relating to the lack of hydric resources, through the development of cooperation and support projects alongside diverse organisations such as Education without Frontiers, the Vicente Ferrer Foundation, Intermon Oxfam and Unicef.