TRANSITIONS TO
THE URBAN
WATER SERVICES
OF TOMORROW
08 MAGAZINE
A letter from the project
coordinator David Schwesig
TRUST
comes to
an end
The project legacy
will remain online
CONTACT:
[email protected] / [email protected]
www.trust-i.net
MAGAZINE
TRUST Work Areas at a glance
WA 1
Diagnosis
& Vision
Work Area Leader
Rui Cunha Marques
WA2
Policy,
Financing
& Society
Work Area Leader
Paul Jeffrey
WA3
Analysis
Tools
Work Area Leader
Sveinung Saegrov
02
08
08
Work Area 1 (Diagnosis & Vision) of TRUST carried out an initial assessment of the urban water situation
in Europe, answering the following key questions: Where are utilities now? Where do they want to be?
How might the utilities get there? How does it ensure success?
The work area consisted of three work packages. In the first one the latest research and information on best practice
concerning the sustainable urban water management was reviewed. Based on a structured multi criteria analysis,
these systematic reviews summarized the findings of all relevant studies, making the available evidence accessible to
other work areas in TRUST. Also, appropriate performance and sustainability attributes and indicators for the
different dimensions of urban water cycle systems (UWCS) were identified. In the second work package the future
pressures and trends that will impact the urban water systems were identified. Particularly, this review took into
account the state of the art concerning the urban scale predictions and the associated uncertainties and flexible and
adaptable systems that are capable of dealing with them. It also addressed how the European water utilities are
preparing long-term strategic plans for delivering services for the next 30-50 years and the transitioning process,
which is being followed by the water utilities, including their roadmap. The third work package was based on the
results obtained in the other areas and focused on the development of both structure and process for an effective
urban water cycle services adaptation roadmap framework. There were several outputs of this work package, including
the ‘current state of sustainability of UWCS’, ‘best practices for sustainable UWCS’ and a ‘roadmap guideline.’
Work Area 2 (Policy, Financing & Society) has brought six deliverables to fruition during the TRUST
project, as well as the completion of twelve formal tasks and the delivery of numerous international and
European conference papers and seminars. One of our earlier accomplishments was the production of a set
of policy briefs for water management practitioners, which was based on the outcomes from a series of
workshops that took place in several European cities. Subsequent major achievements included the
delivery of practical tools: (1) the Financial Sustainability Rating Tool (FSRT) for urban water systems;
and (2) the Adaptive Potential Self-Audit (APSA) tool for urban water stakeholders, along with advice
to water management practitioners on competition, efficiency, and new business opportunities.
Most recently, we have successfully delivered a conceptual model of stable water governance arrangements,
allowing water service companies and regulators to improve the resilience of water distribution agreements. A
conference paper on ‘Risk, Vulnerability, Resilience and Adaptive Management in the Water Sector’ was presented at
the 2014 IWA biennial Conference & Exhibition in Lisbon, Portugal, and a seminar on ‘Understanding and
Improving Organisational Adaptive Capacity in the Water Sector’ was given at the 2014 Royal Geographical
Society (RGS)-IBG Annual International Conference in London, UK. A further presentation, ‘Lessons Learned
in Designing Web-Based Support Tools for Urban Water Management’, will be delivered at the 2015 IWA Cities
of the Future / final TRUST Conference in Mulheim, Germany.
In Work Area 3 (Analysis Tools) of the TRUST project, tools were developed that assist planners to
understand the consequences in a sustainability context of alternative development strategies and
strategic decisions. The tools are based on a metabolism system that comprises the complete urban
water cycle and deals with the resources flow such as materials, energy and economy. The output is
shown as impact on the atmosphere (carbon footprint) and receiving waters (pollutants).
Two main tools have been developed. The first, WaterMet2, is based on a detailed model of all elements in the
urban water cycle system and follows the flow from very upstream (water source) to the final effluent (discharge
to water and atmosphere), using short time steps (days) and small-scale subsystems. The other tool, the Dynamic
Metabolism Model, is based on a top-down analysis of a complete system, typically with yearly time resolutions
and less data requirement. The metabolism models are connected to the decision support system in TRUST and
were developed and tested with data from Oslo, Norway. A procedure for risk based analysis, where risk is related
to the achievement of defined goals for sustainability is another important outcome of WA3.
WA4
Technologies
& Operational
Options
Work Area Leader
Thomas Wintgens
WA5
Future Water
Policies
& Integrated
Tools
Work Area Leader
Helena Alegre
WA6
Implementa
Implementation &
DemonstraDemonstra
tion
Work Area Leader
Theo Van den Hoven
MAGAZINE
The main objective of Work Area 4 (Technologies & Operational Options) was to develop technologies
and management options to enhance urban water services. Those can be new tools, methods or models
to assist in planning, implementation, operation and maintenance of the urban water cycle system.
The ultimate goal is to support the water utilities in keeping a high level of service while meeting the
challenges of the future. Across Europe these are often region specific and confront water utilities with
deteriorated water quality or simply shortage of water.
For the drinking water sector, technology providers and research institutions within TRUST have successfully
developed procedures for a more detailed characterization and optimised removal of natural organic matter
(NOM). This helped utilities to treat the water in a more effective way, e.g. in terms of coagulant dosing - entailing
cost and environmental benefits. Next to resources use, energy demand is a critical issue for the water sector. We
supported various utilities in their ambition towards more energy self-sufficiency. This included a number of
intervention concepts for energy saving, recovery and generation from the urban water system, such as thorough
analysis of whole water cycles energy balances, dedicated energy plant audits and diagnostic and modelling tools to
assess and optimize energy requirement for pressurized distribution systems, among others. Another rewarding
work was carried out on combined sewer overflows, which can be a considerable source for pollution of surface
waters. Tools refined in TRUST helped municipalities to assess their disconnection potential and to realise
sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) effectively.
The challenge of Work Area 5 (Future Water Policies & Integrated Tools) was to produce guidance
materials and software that assist decision-makers in managing the urban water infrastructures,
aiming at the quality and sustainability of the services provided. The TRUST / AWARE-P approach to
infrastructure asset management is designed as a continuous improvement management process. It is
a service-oriented IAM planning for long-term sustainability, embedding key ISO 55000 requirements.
It built from previous knowledge (e.g. CARE-W, CARE-S, AWARE-P) and developed furthermore under
TRUST. This approach is incorporated into a coherent set of manuals of best practice and software
applications, complemented with an e-learning course and a curriculum for a post-graduate course. The
manuals are targeted at policy-makers, utility decision makers and top and middle managers.
The TRUST software deployment for infrastructure asset management (trust.baseform.org) offer a coherent set
of tools developed at a professional grade that allows decision-makers to carry on diagnosis, explore alternative
solutions and compare, rank and select them in a defendable, repeatable and transparent way. This is complemented
with two other exploratory tools, developed at a prototype level: a decision support tool based on a metabolism
model, and a leading-edge interactive tool to assist stakeholder establishing common objectives, assessment
criteria and metrics in decision theater environments.
Based on the roadmap concept explored and tested in WA1 on the multiple TRUST products and on the TRUST
concept of sustainability, a roadmap web-based tool was also produced to guide urban water utilities in their
path to a sustainable future. The tool is designed to easily help and guide all kind of water-related users, encouraging
them to read/assess the most pertinent documents and/or tools.
TRUST was designed with and for city utilities, to support their quests for improved sustainability in
delivering urban water services. Reaching out to and working closely with these end-users has therefore
been essential from the moment the project started. Work Area 6 (Implementation & Demonstration)
was established to make and sustain such connections between knowledge institutes and water utilities
and between researchers and professionals around Europe.
It successfully deployed three instruments towards this aim. Firstly, it set up and ran roadmapping processes with
each of the ten city utilities participating in TRUST. These processes were designed following the TRUST
roadmap guidelines, which in turn were adapted to the specific needs of cities and regions in mind. Where
possible and desired, TRUST tools were tested and/or demonstrated in situ as part of these processes. They have
resulted in strategic roadmaps that support city utilities in realizing their long terms visions of sustainable urban
water cycle systems (UWCS). Secondly, several cities platform events and regional workshops were organized,
in places such as Athens and the Algarve. Whereas the roadmapping processes were meant to develop individual
and contextualized roadmaps towards sustainable UWCS, these events stimulated the exchange of insights and
learning between city utilities participating in TRUST. Lastly, the Train4TRUST initiative enabled city utilities
to be trained in some of the tools and instruments developed in the TRUST project. This helped translating
generic outputs from TRUST into more practical ‘on the ground’ outcomes.
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Quotes
Collaboration between water
(Waternet), waste (Waste to Energy
Company AEB) and logistic chains
(Port of Amsterdam) creates new
opportunities. The visioning and back
casting approach within the TRUST
Project helped us to define our common
goals for a circular economy.
Andre Struker
Waternet
(Netherlands)
Paul Jeffrey
Cranfield University
(England)
Getting feedback from the
Train4TRUST workshop participants
about the diversity and complexity of
water infrastructure management
showed the high level of need for
user-friendly decision support tools
helping to depict the long road of
decision making.
Aaron Krämer
Step Consulting
(Germany)
TRUST enabled us to gain deeper
insights into the actual issues water
utilities in water stressed areas are
concerned with.
Thomas Wintgens
University of Applied
Sciences and Arts
Northwestern Switzerland
(Switzerland)
I got the opportunity to develop
the Dynamic Metabolism Model
from scratch. I was happy to know
that Oslo VAV liked the model,
which I spent a lot time testing and
working on, thanks to data which
the VAV officials were happy to
provide. This was a great
opportunity for me, providing the
impetus to go ahead and develop
solutions to challenges faced by
governments, industries and the
society in the future.
Venkatesh Govindarajan
Norwegian University of
Science and Technology
(Norway)
The TRUST project has been an
amazing experience for me. Working
with such a vast variety of people from
so many countries has definitely
broadened my horizons about the
different challenges the wator sector is
facing. It was enriching and exciting to
learn about the numerous possible
solutions to overcome those challenges.
Lisa Zimmermann
IWW Water Centre
(Germany)
Urban Water Systems will face significant challenges in the
near future. The TRUST project represented a unique
opportunity to work along with a broad extent of European
researchers and utilities in a project aimed to foresee these
challenges and developing the best tools to overcome them.
Jose Gascao
Aguas de Portugal
(Portugal)
04
The TRUST project has provided
some wonderful opportunities to
work closely with European water
utilities on the urgent challenges
they face in delivering sustainable
water services for citizens and
businesses. It's been both
stimulating and rewarding working
with colleagues from across Europe
on these issues and the project
leaves a strong legacy of
technologies, tools, and techniques
which will drive improvements in
the quality and efficiency of water
services for decades to come.
Prof. Zoran Kapelan
University of Exeter
(England)
MAGAZINE
TRUST has been a very suitable project
to address the challenges the water
utilities are actually facing. We
developed new solutions regarding
technology and administration, carried
out a lot of dissemination activities like
publications, workshops and congresses,
did many, many hours of work by
collecting data and - last but not least –
gained a lot of new experiences about
what is going on in Europe`s Water
Cities. Where is the next project, please?
Niels-Peter Bertram
HAMBURG WASSER
(Germany)
The TRUST project
partnership has allowed
local and global knowledge,
skills and technologies to
be shared, and the realized
development to be
implemented directly at the
utility level.
Jadranka Milina
Oslo VAV
(Norway)
Within the TRUST project, the University of Exeter team developed
several new methods and tools for the improved management of
integrated urban water systems. This includes the new WaterMet2
conceptual model and tool that was developed by Dr. Behzadian and
Prof. Kapelan, which simulates the long-term metabolic behaviour of a
water system across the full urban cycle by quantifying the principal
fluxes of water, energy and greenhouse gas flow emission, only to name a
few. The WaterMet2 model and tool was successfully tested and validated
during the TRUST project on a Norwegian case study and more recently
on an Italian case study. Following these successes WaterMet2 was
applied successfully to urban water systems in two other countries.
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4 YEARS
of productive work and networking
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TRUST and the utilities
Iren Acqua Gas (Italy)
Robert Bertozzi
What did you gain by working with the TRUST project?
I enjoyed and appreciated very much the possibility to work with
colleagues from the most important European Institutions and
Universities (particularly Bologna University), who are dealing
with integrated water services. It was very stimulating to introduce
TRUST outcomes to them and discuss different points of view
about water management and planning.
Have you or are you going to implement anything coming
from TRUST?
Yes. We hope that we'll be in condition to introduce the use of an
urban metabolism model (WaterMet2) first in Reggio (TRUST
pilot city) and then hopefully also in other towns of the territories
managed by Iren Acqua Gas. We'll also take advantage of the
studies carried out by ourselves and by the other TRUST partners
that will be shared in the future. We hope and believe that the
TRUST experience will not end for us with the formal conclusion
of the project.
Hamburg Wasser (Germany)
Niels-Peter Bertram
What did you gain by working with the TRUST project?
Besides the contents and topics of TRUST, the human and
technical exchange with so many different people from different
countries in Europe was an enormous benefit for us in Hamburg.
On the way to sustainable urban water services of tomorrow we
took the following basic steps forward: In 2012 we took part in
the “City Blueprint” baseline assessment process, which gave us
many references and indications how Hamburg can learn from
other cities by sharing their best practices. A fruitful Train4TRUST
training event on the TRUST / AWARE-P software was successfully
hosted by HAMBURG WASSER in 2015, which also gave us also
many possibilities for exchange.
Certainly our main task in TRUST – the roadmapping process –
gave us major impacts: HAMBURG WASSER is economically
dependent on the amount of sold water and so “water metering”
and “tariffing” were identified as main roadmap topics. They need
to be adapted to the future development of HAMBURG WASSER.
Have you or are you going to implement anything coming
from TRUST?
Actually the management board of HAMBURG WASSER decided
to restructure “water metering” and “tariffing”, based on the results
of the TRUST roadmapping process. These topics are very
important for a sustainable economic success of the company in
the future.
Furthermore, during the discussions about “water metering” it
became clear that there are different regulations for the calibration of
water meters in European countries. In Germany, water meters
must be calibrated according to the German law every six years
for cold water and every five years for warm water. Norway or the
Netherlands on the other hand have longer intervals of 8-10 years
and France has no regulation for the exchange interval at all. For
reducing the enormous costs for the exchange of the meters,
HAMBURG WASSER is now working to achieve longer exchange
intervals in Germany.
08
Apa Nova Bucuresti (Romania)
Anne-Cécile Roussel
Oslo VAV (Norway)
Jadranka Milina
Aguas de Portugal (Portugal)
Jose Gascao
What did you gain by working with the TRUST project?
It was a very useful experience to share our common issues regarding
systems operation and assessment with the international experts
involved in this project. Our participation in the TRUST project
showed us some of the best practices in the water sector, mainly
in terms of performance indicators assessment, failure analysis,
financial projection, etc. Once again, we could see the importance
of databases and historical data for the asset management
programmes but also the importance of hydraulic modelling. The
most important gain was to know precisely the recommended
structure and detail for our databases, in order to give correct and
sufficient input data for the TRUST/AWARE-P software.
What did you gain by working with the TRUST project?
The basic objective and criteria of the urban water cycle services
(UWCS) sustainability dimensions the TRUST project established
reflect the breadth of transition processes and targets for 2030.
Oslo VAV used knowledge gained from the TRUST sustainability
benchmarking process, TRUST workshops organized to build the
capacity of citizens groups and governance bodies to develop their
vision for future urban water services, the metabolism-based UWCS
performance models WaterMet2 and DMM, a study of sustainable
urban drainage systems (SUDS) scenario in the peri-urban
Hoffselva catchment area in Oslo, the TRUST roadmap process
for UWCS transition. All of this shaped the Oslo VAV strategy
process and specified demonstrating activities and innovative
solutions that match long-term sustainability related goals.
What did you gain by working with the TRUST project?
Being inside a project like TRUST allowed the AdP group to gain
access to cutting-edge tools developed to face some of the challenges
a utility like AdP will face in the near future.
Have you or are you going to implement anything coming
from TRUST?
We are interested to use results of the TRUST project, especially
the TRUST/AWARE-P software. We intend to make some
simulations on a small DMA as soon as we obtain all necessary
data. Moreover, performance indicators assessment described and
used in the TRUST project will be calculated for our network in
order to compare them with those obtained by other utilities. We
are also interested to assess financial parameters for our network.
Have you or are you going to implement anything coming
from TRUST?
The Infrastructure Asset Management (IAM) training in
Mozambique was the most visible implementation of TRUST
outcomes so far in the AdP Group. Nevertheless, IAM and the
Water-Energy nexus are two of the main priorities of the AdP
group for the next years to come, so it is likely that the tools
developed under TRUST will be implemented to some extent.
Have you or are you going to implement anything coming
from TRUST?
Oslo VAV has chosen to take an active role in supporting development
and to implement those of the TRUST tools and processes that add
value to its strategic planning.
INTERVIEW /
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TRUST in figures
Accumulated data trafic (GB)
2011
158
Professionals involved in TRUST
2012
1,38
6,95
17,74
2013
2
2
4
5
8
MAGAZINE
9
16
17
21
27
47
31,53
2014
36,31
2015
GB
Romania France
Greece Switzerland Italy
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KRW UCRAN IWW
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VERI
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FHNW
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SINTEF ADD
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UNEXE
IPS
SNBV
HRW
STEP
BIT
YDRE
SW
HWW
OW
ADP
IAG CANAL WATNL
29
NTNU
PAGES
70.000
8
7,31
60.000
6,78
59.877 7,45
50.670
7
6
50.000
59.877
VISITS
2015
5,61
5
40.000
30.000
8360
20.000
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Countries visiting the website (Top 10)
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PER VISIT
2013
4
25.468
100
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Visits to the website / Pages per visit
7,96
150
350
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100
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2012
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TRANSITIONS TO
THE URBAN
WATER SERVICES
OF TOMORROW
08 MAGAZINE
A letter from the project
coordinator David Schwesig
TRUST
comes to
an end
The project legacy
will remain online
CONTACT:
[email protected] / [email protected]
www.trust-i.net