water – Progress in Research

Fibre optics against water wastage

Posted on 25/07/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Using fibre optic sensors to monitor water networks against wastage: the international journal Sensors published the results of an experiment carried out at Politecnico di Milano aimed at optimising the water network.

Researchers from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering pioneered the use of distributed fibre optic sensing (DFOS) based on Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) technology for monitoring water pipeline networks over long distances. At the heart of this technology is the common and inexpensive optical fibre used for telecommunications (which brings the internet into our homes) capable of measuring deformations to a hundredth of a millimetre.

The scholars worked on High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) piping, today the most commonly used material for distribution systems. By wrapping and fixing the fibre optic sensor cable on the outer surface of the pipe, they tested the ability to detect deformations related to pressure anomalies along a pipe, such as those caused by water leaks.

In the future, the tested technology will be further developed towards industrial-scale production of ‘natively smart’ HDPE pipes, where DFOS are integrated into the pipe surface during the extrusion process.

The study was signed by Manuel Bertulessi, Daniele Fabrizio Bignami, Ilaria Boschini, Marina Longoni, Giovanni Menduni and Jacopo Morosi.

The paper published in Sensors

Safe drinking water distribution with SafeCREW

Posted on 12/05/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The second meeting of the SafeCREW project, funded by the European Union (EU) within the Horizon Europe program, has just taken place at Politecnico di Milano. SafeCREW aims to support the novel EU Drinking Water Directive (DWD) by generating advanced knowledge and developing tools and guidelines for disinfected and non-disinfected drinking water supply systems.

Provision of safe drinking water in sufficient quantity is essential for human health and concerns 4 out of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as defined by United Nations. Both surface water and groundwater are essential resources for drinking water supply throughout the European Union. While water quantity, threatened by increasingly frequent periods of drought, receives much attention, the threats of climate change impacts on water quality for drinking water supply, on the treatment processes necessary for its purification and on the maintenance of drinking water quality along the distribution network are currently inadequately considered.

Despite the long-term experience with the reliable operation of drinking water supply systems (DWSS), the climate change impacts on water quality require to face a number of new challenges: the (future) need for disinfection, the microbial stability in the distribution network, and the formation of disinfection by-products (DBPs), with potential adverse effects on human health.

Utilities need to address short-term demands for improved risk management arising from the current DWD, as well the long-term challenges of climate change impacts on water quality, minimizing the risks for final consumers.

Currently, DWSS are very diversified by source of supply, purification processes, characteristics of the distribution networks, so that they must address different concerns to supply drinking water safe for human health. SafeCREW faces these critical issues, focusing on disinfection, its consequences, and the minimization of disinfectant dosages and DBPs formation, and moreover it addresses the potential need for disinfection in currently non-disinfected DWSS.

Four case studies in three European countries were chosen as representative (Hamburg, Berlin, Milano, Tarragona) to develop novel technological and modelling tools for drinking water treatment and distribution management, with a multidisciplinary approach, which allows to act on the entire DWSS, from the supply source, via purification treatments, up to the final distribution.

More in detail, chemical and microbiological water quality characterization methods will be improved, novel data sets on the occurrence and concentration of so far unknown DBPs will be created, evaluation protocols for materials in contact with water will be identified, innovative and sustainable treatment solutions will be developed to actively respond to the identified threats, the management of distribution networks will be optimized, which can no longer be seen only as passive infrastructures for water distribution, and finally risk assessment procedures will be defined that integrate the effects of mixtures of chemical and microbiological contaminants.

SafeCREW will provide transferable tools to end-users (water utilities, national/EU regulators, researchers, enterprises), including:

reliable methods to evaluate microbial stability, characterize natural organic matter (NOM), detect DBPs and account for their human health toxicity;
experimental protocols to select proper materials in contact with disinfected and non-disinfected water;
monitoring and modelling tools, also exploiting machine learning, for real-time optimization of DWSS management;
an integrated risk assessment framework to guide future interventions which ensure that both disinfected and non-disinfected DWSS can continue providing safe drinking water in the face of climate change.

SafeCREW will increase the preparedness of the EU water sector for challenges arising from climate change and will support the EU’s leading position in science-based policy making for drinking water consumer protection.

SafeCREW partnership includes 11 European organizations. In addition to Politecnico di Milano, DVGW (German Technical and Scientific Association for Gas and Water) Research Center (Leader) and Tutech Innovation GmbH, both at Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) (Germany), Kompetenzzentrum Wasser Berlin (KWB) (Germany), BioDetection Systems b.v. (BDS) (The Netherlands), EURECAT Technologic de Catalunya (Spain), Umweltbundesamt (UBA) (Germany), Consorci d’Aigües de Tarragona (CAT) (Spain), Metropolitana Milanese SpA (Italy), Umweltforschungszentrum Leipzig (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, UFZ, Germany) and Multisensor Systems Ltd. (MSS, United Kingdom).

Politecnico di Milano brings in SafeCREW multidisciplinary skills thanks to the collaboration of researchers from four Departments: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (DICA, prof. Manuela Antonelli), Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering “G. Natta” (DCMC, prof. Carlo Punta), Department of Mathematics (DMAT, prof. Ilenia Epifani) and Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering (DEIB, prof. Francesco Trovò).

SafeCREW website

Water wars: causes and possible solutions

Posted on 15/12/202206/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The control of water resources, like oil today, could be the cause of wars in the world in the near future.

The prestigious journal Nature Sustainability has published a study conducted by a group of researchers from the Politecnico di Milano who investigated the phenomenon by analysing, in particular, the socio-hydrological characteristics of the numerous conflicts that have arisen in the last 20 years in the Lake Chad region, in central Africa.

The research showed how conflicts tend to be associated with specific and complex conditions, which in turn deal with the socio-economic value of water as a form of livelihood, especially in agriculture, and with the effects that human use of water has on the accessibility of this resource.
For a better understanding of these conflicts, the researchers argue, it is necessary to establish measures of water availability that take into account the importance of water for human sustenance and the mechanisms that are generated when a resource is used unequally.

Working in this way it’s possible to produce quantitative and qualitative descriptions of particular environmental “patterns” associated with specific conflict dynamics
Nikolas Galli, researcher of the Glob3ScienCE group (Global Studies on Sustainable Security in a Changing Environment) group of the Politecnico di Milano

The study Socio-hydrological features of armed conflicts in the Lake Chad Basin is authored by Nikolas Galli, Ilenia Epifani, Davide Danilo Chiarelli and Maria Cristina Rulli of the Politecnico di Milano and Jampel Dell’Angelo of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.

The study online

SOS-Water project begins

Posted on 21/10/202206/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Water resources around the globe are under increasing stress. Among other factors, climate change, rising food and energy demand, and improving living standards have led to a six-fold increase in global water withdrawals over the last century, with significant consequences for water quality and availability, ecosystem health, biodiversity, as well as social stability.

The Environmental Intelligent lab of the Politecnico di Milano is part in the SOS-Water Project – Water Resources System Safe Operating Space in a Changing Climate and Society. It will set out the boundaries within which the Earth’s capacity to provide life-support systems for humanity is not endangered, and humanity’s capacity to adapt to environmental changes is not overburdened. Crossing such thresholds or tipping points in the complex Earth system could result in abrupt and irreversible ecological change.

To safeguard a reliable and sufficient water supply for humans and ecosystems in the future, it is therefore essential to define an SOS for global water resources under changing conditions.

By advancing and linking water system models with models from sectors such as agriculture and energy, biodiversity, or sediment transport, the SOS-Water Project aims to lay the foundations for a holistic assessment framework of water resources across spatial scales.

Based on five case studies of river basins in Europe and Vietnam – the Jucar River Basin in Spain, the Upper Danube region, the Danube and Rhine River deltas, and the Mekong River Basin – an interdisciplinary team of researchers will develop a multidimensional SOS for water. The framework will enable the assessment of feedback loops and trade-offs between different dimensions of the water system and help address pressing global, regional, and local challenges.

In addition to going beyond state-of-the-art water systems modeling, the project will develop a comprehensive set of indicators to assess and monitor the environmental, social, and economic performance of water systems.

A strong emphasis will also be put on participatory research and inclusive stakeholder engagement. The participating researchers will collaborate with regional and local authorities, water user representatives, non-governmental organizations, and citizens to co-create future scenarios and water management pathways.

By streamlining water planning at different levels, it can be ensured that water allocation among societies, economies, and ecosystems will be economically efficient, socially fair, and resilient to shocks.

The project consortium consists of ten partners from eight countries in Europe and Asia: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (coordinator), Universiteit Utrecht, Universitat Politècnica de València, Politecnico di Milano Forschungsverbund Berlin E.V., FutureWater, Institutul National de Cercetare-Dezvoltare pentru Geologie si Geoecologie Marina, Southern Institute for Water Resources Planning Eutema Research Services, Aalborg Universitet Eidgenoessische Anstalt Fuer Wasserversorgung, Abwasserreinigung und Gewaesserchutz. The scientific coordinator for our university is Prof. Andrea Castelletti, of the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering.

New model of agriculture and competition for water resources

Posted on 02/02/202206/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The ongoing agrarian transformation towards large-scale commercial agriculture often pursues the goal of increasing agricultural production through the expansion of irrigation. A study by Politecnico di Milano, published in Nature Communications, investigates how transnational Large Scale Land Acquisitions (LSLA), which play a major role in this process, can influence competition for water resources at the local scale.

Conducted in collaboration with the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Notre Dame, the Colorado State University, the University of Delaware and the Vrije Univeristeit in Amsterdam, the study combines hydrological and crop modelling, agricultural statistics and geo-referenced information on individual transnational LSLAs to assess the emergence of water scarcity associated with them.

The study found that competition for water has been exacerbated, to the detriment of local communities, for 105 of the 160 LSLAs considered (67% of the land acquired). On the one hand, the land of interest to investors is precisely that with preferential access to surface water and groundwater resources, and on the other hand, it was found that these agricultural investments have often been the premise for the planting of water-intensive crops and the expansion of irrigated crops.

Combining the growing demand for water with limited water resources is a key challenge for sustainable development,

comments Maria Cristina Rulli, Professor of Hydrology at Politecnico di Milano.

The use of water resources for agricultural production in large-scale land acquisitions can generate hydrological and social consequences for local users. To date, there have been only a few timid attempts to regulate, mainly on a voluntary basis, large-scale agricultural land acquisitions in the Global South and, unfortunately, recent progress in understanding the water dimension of these acquisitions has not yet been translated into a water governance perspective that takes into account any hydrological constraints, the need for water to ensure rural livelihoods, and environmental law.