The Digital Twin: What is it and how can it benefit the Water Sector?

Defining its role in providing real customer value

The concept of the Digital Twin is increasingly entering the Water Sector as an innovation driver. More than ever, its role in bringing value to operators is being highlighted by industry professionals around the world.

What is a Digital Twin?

A Digital Twin is a computer model that virtually reflects and simulates a real object, its environment and interaction, providing a picture as accurate as possible of how that object behaves in real time.

This could be a water treatment plant, where the Digital Twin includes process models to simulate the treatment steps, physical assets (e.g. pumps) represented in CAD, and performance models to optimise resources (e.g. energy usage).

Continue reading “The Digital Twin: What is it and how can it benefit the Water Sector?”

7 questions for the User Experience designer

User experience design (often termed ‘UX’) is the process of creating products that provide meaningful, relevant and satisfying experiences to users. Most of you are likely to hear the term ‘UX Designer’ coming up more often nowadays. Just what does a UX designer do? Is this a ‘new’ thing? What’s the real background process of creating all these cool stuff?

Get up close and personal with our UX Designers Anna Katrine Høgh Andersen and Luca Mottadelli as they answer our 7 burning questions. Continue reading “7 questions for the User Experience designer”

How to reduce inflow and infiltration in a wastewater network

Stormwater ingress to a city’s sewer system through low gully traps, illegal connections, broken pipes or unsealed manholes is known as Inflow and Infiltration (I&I). This can cause overflows, system strains and interruptions.

What is Inflow & Infiltration? 

Inflow: Stormwater that enters the wastewater network directly through gully traps, roofs or illegal connections.

Infiltration: Stormwater or groundwater that enters the wastewater network through cracked pipes and leaky or faulty manholes.

Continue reading “How to reduce inflow and infiltration in a wastewater network”

Is the darkest place under the candlelight?

Potential problems with insufficient water circulation in water tower tanks

Many would assume that water quality is best in the storage tank or near the tank. While that is often the case, there are exceptions where this might be the opposite. Continue reading “Is the darkest place under the candlelight?”

Safeguarding coastal biodiversity with ecological engineering

The rapid pace of development in coastal areas often comes at an environmental and ecological cost, with the accelerated loss of coastal nearshore habitats such as seagrass meadows and mangrove forests. However, the presence of these nearshore coastal habitats play an important role in the maintenance of resilience of coastal cities and populations. They confer resilience via ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, moderation of natural hazards and nutrient cycling. There is a recognised and urgent need to stem the loss of these valuable habitats in balance with infrastructure development and economic needs. Continue reading “Safeguarding coastal biodiversity with ecological engineering”

The very basics of artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning

Unsure about the similarities and differences between artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning? This blog post introduces the quick basics. Continue reading “The very basics of artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning”

How to safely recycle plastic waste into new food packaging

A vast amount of the plastic that is produced for packaging purposes is used for storing food. Considering both the waste generated and the resources spent to produce packaging, it is only common sense to recycle some of this plastic for new food packaging. Moreover, circular economy is a focal point in the EU, and in 2025, the extended producer responsibility should result in more recycling. Continue reading “How to safely recycle plastic waste into new food packaging”

Why empathy is the key to providing a great customer experience

According to the Cambridge dictionary, customer service is ‘the way that an organisation deals with customers before, during, and after a sale, and the activities involved in dealing with customers.’

Technically, the above is right. But these actions will not result in a great customer experience without empathy. Continue reading “Why empathy is the key to providing a great customer experience”

Automated bird monitoring in offshore wind farms

Compliance with regulatory requirements increasingly demands clear evidence on how birds behave within and around wind farms. To meet this demand, automated multi-sensor monitoring systems such as MUSE have been developed to provide robust data on real-life bird behaviour at and within wind farms. The MUSE system is based on integrated radar and digital camera(s) and was developed during a four-year pioneering investigation on seabird behaviour at offshore wind turbines; the Carbon Trust Bird Collision Avoidance Study 2014-2017. Continue reading “Automated bird monitoring in offshore wind farms”

What has climate change got to do with increased groundwater salinity?

Rising sea levels due to climate change is affecting us more than we know

Sea level rise due to climate change is one of the contributing factors of salinity intrusion, particularly for shallow sandy aquifers in water stressed coastal areas. In many of such areas surface water salinity is additionally increased due to reduced upstream discharges and salinity can intrude both directly from the sea and from the surface waters. Furthermore, a temporarily rise in sea level can be caused by various acts of nature, such as tsunamis and hurricanes bringing about storm surges. Due to ongoing evaporation, the salt concentration of water in sandy aquifers have the potential to increase exponentially and eventually cause contamination or environmental problems. Continue reading “What has climate change got to do with increased groundwater salinity?”