Launch of the H2020 Fiware4Water Project

FIWARE is an open IT platform which was created under the Public-Private Partnership Program on the Future Internet (FI-PPP) launched by the European Commission in 2011. Since its creation, this community has evolved and is today a global ecosystem of developers, innovation centres, accelerators, cities, SMEs and start-ups. It facilitates the development of innovative digital solutions, suitable for the IoT (Internet of Things) era.

Regarding the water sector, the IT development of applications and management tools using Big Data analytics, or interoperability and standardisation for data exchange is rather delayed, especially because the water utilities are usually a very conservative sector, as well as a  very fragmented one, leading to  special challenges, regarding systems interoperability, data standardization, semantics and formats exchanges, including governance and legislation issues..

Fiware4Water therefore intends to link the water sector to the FIWARE IT platform. Several interfaces and tools will be developed for the benefit of all the end users of the water sector and will be demonstrated through four special demo cases in Europe and the UK, covering the whole water cycle:

• Water Supply System of the of the greater Athens metropolitan area (Greece),
• Drinking water distribution network of the city of Cannes (France),
• Amsterdam Wastewater Treatment Plant (Netherlands),
• Smart meters and citizen interaction in South Moulton (UK).

For the UK Case Study, CWS will work together with South West Water, the second collaboration in EU funded projects, after the successful ongoing SIM4NEXUS project.

At a higher level, Fiware4Water aims to inform and engage with water utilities, software developers, SMEs, R&D organisations, local authorities and citizens with the creation of specific networks and communities of users and developers

Fiware4Water is a three year project (2019-2022), involving 14 partners from 8 European Countries.  The consortium includes FIWARE experts, ICT experts, representatives of the water sector, municipalities and business development experts. The project is Coordinated by the International Office of Water (OiEau) based in Paris.

Dr Lydia Vamvakeridou-Lyroudia, CWS is the Scientific and Technical Manager in the Fiware4Water project to oversee the research progress and ensure the quality of deliverables. The other CWS members involved in Fiware4Water are Dr Albert Chen, Prof Slobodan Djordjevic, Prof Dragan Savic, Dr Mehdi Khoury, Dr Barry Evans and Dr Kate Baker.

The CWS role involves the scientific integration of water distribution network modelling, and leakage and abnormality detection with FIWARE to promote wider applications. CWS will also collaborate with South West Water to engage with the communities and co-create local policy for future Digital Single Market (DSM). CWS will also utilise smart meter data for creating serious games to raise social awareness and enable behaviour changes for water saving and efficiency.

Fiware4Water has a total budget of €5.7M, funded by the European Commission (Grant Agreement 821036). The University of Exeter (CEMPS/CWS) budget is €416K.