The use of activated sludge models (ASMs) is a common way in the field of wastewater engineering in terms of plant design, development, optimization, and testing of stand-alone treatment plants. The focus of this study was the development of a joint control system (JCS) for a municipal wastewater treatment plant (mWWTP) and an upstream industrial wastewater treatment plant (iWWTP) to create synergies for saving aeration energy. Therefore, an ASM3 + BioP model of the mWWTP was developed to test different scenarios and to find the best set-points for the novel JCS. A predictive equation for the total nitrogen load (TN) coming from the iWWTP was developed based on real-time data. The predictive TN equation together with an optimized aeration strategy, based on the modelling results, was implemented as JCS. First results of the implementation of the JCS in the real environment showed an increase in energy efficiency for TN removal.

Understanding the residential end uses of water is helpful for the sustainable management of water resources and the implementation of water conservation strategies. In this study, over one hundred studies were systematically reviewed to provide a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art research on end-use water consumption. Each study was reviewed, clustered, and subjected to a multilevel analysis aimed at quantitatively comparing the characteristics of the end uses of water available in the literature. The findings of this work support water utilities, researchers, policy makers, and consumers in identifying the key aspects of water end uses and exploring their main features across different geographical, socioeconomic, and cultural regions of the world.

Der vorliegende Forschungsbericht befasst sich mit den derzeitigen Unsicherheiten bezüglich der technischen Nutzungsdauer und des Alterungsverhaltens der gängigsten Renovierungsmethode in Kanalnetzen, dem Cured in Place Pipe (CIPP) Schlauchlining. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist die Entwicklung einer fundierten Datengrundlage für eine Schlauchliner-Überlebenskurve für die Anwendung in Alterungsmodellen. Das methodische Vorgehen umfasst (i) eine Literaturrecherche, (ii) Interviews mit Kanalsanierungs-Expert:innen sowie (iii) eine Auswertung von Daten der Berliner Wasserbetriebe zur Erstellung einer aktualisierten und geeigneten Datengrundlage für die Überlebenskurven. Dabei zeigen sich in der Auswertung der Literatur und den Interviews mehrheitliche Schätzungen der Nutzungsdauer von Schlauchlinern von über 50 Jahren. Die Untersuchung zeigt jedoch auch, dass diese von vielen Faktoren beeinflusst ist und ein Mangel an belastbaren Daten besteht. Weitere Untersuchungen an langjährig betrieben Schlauchlinern sind daher zwingend notwendig. Der Einbau, insbesondere der Aushärtungsprozess hat sich als Haupteinfluss für Defekte und Mängel an Schlauchlinern gezeigt. Eine Standardisierung der Schadenserfassung und Zustandsbeurteilung von schlauchlinerspezifischen Schäden sowie die Etablierung zerstörungsfreier Inspektionsmethoden sind erforderlich, um das Alterungsverhalten zukünftig besser zu verstehen. Empfehlungen umfassen die Verbesserung der Datenerhebung während des Betriebs, Ein- und Ausbaus von Schlauchlinern, die Erweiterung der Qualitätssicherung beim Einbau, sowie die Untersuchung von Schadenseinflüssen auf die Nutzungsdauer und den Erfahrungsaustausch zwischen Betreibern.

Currently, there is uncertainty about emissions of pharmaceuticals into larger closed ecosystems that are at risk such as the Baltic Sea. There is an increasing need for selecting the right strategies on advanced wastewater treatment. This study analysed 35 pharmaceuticals and iodinated X-ray contrast media in effluents from 82 Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTPs) across Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden. Measured concentrations from Finland and Denmark were compared to predicted effluent concentrations using different levels of refinement. The concentrations predicted by the Total Residue Approach, as proposed by the European Medicines Agency, correlated with R(2) of 0.18 and 0.031 to measured ones for Denmark and Finland, respectively and the predicted data were significantly higher than the measured ones. These correlations improved substantially to R(2) of 0.72 and 0.74 after adjusting for estimated human excretion rates and further to R(2) = 0.91 and 0.78 with the inclusion of removal rates in WWTPs. Temporal analysis of compound variations in a closely monitored WWTP showed minimal fluctuation over days and weeks for most compounds but revealed weekly shifts in iodinated X-ray contrast media due to emergency-only operations at X-ray clinics during weekends and an abrupt seasonal change for gabapentin. The findings underscore the limitations of current predictive models and findings (...) demonstrate how these methodologies can be refined by incorporating human pharmaceutical excretion/metabolization as well as removal in wastewater treatment plants to more accurately forecast pharmaceutical levels in aquatic environments.

Addressing Europe's current challenges of aging sewer networks, the presented research focuses on the uncertainties in service life and aging behavior of the most used renovation technique, Cured in Place Pipe (CIPP) lining. Examining its aging behavior, common defects and deficiencies were analyzed through literature review and expert interviews. The findings influenced the proposition of a calibration setting for a deterioration model using survival curves. Identified defects stress the need for precise installation and curing processes. The study recommends a thorough review of the initially specified 50-year service life, acknowledging uncertainties during the installation process.

Extending the AI-driven Software SEMAplus with a risk prioritization module.

Selection and analysis of risk criteria as preliminary part of decision making.

Analysis of multicriteria decision approaches and choice of ELECTRE TRI.

Der Klimawandel stellt die Wasserwirtschaft vor immer größere Herausforderungen, insbesondere in West- und Südeuropa aufgrund lang anhaltender Dürren. Wie Abwasser im Sinne der Kreislaufwirtschaft als Ressource genutzt werden kann, zeigt ein Unternehmen aus Lleida.

Highlights

• The open source model ABIMO allows for a simple calculation of the urban water balance.

• The deviation from the annual natural water balance can be used to detect hotspots for WSUD.

• Transferability of ABIMO is currently tested between the German cities of Berlin and Cologne.

With 120 Mio. m3 per year of lost water globally, leakages in drinking water distribution networks (WDN) still pose a major challenge to water utilities, furthermore, resulting in a multitude of cascading effects such as operational disruptions, environmental hazard, property damage, and sanitary issues. In the last decades there has been a growing focus on leakage detection within the scientific community leading to the development of numerous computer-based solutions for leakage detection. Despite these developments, practical approaches employed by water utilities in their leak management routines still primarily rely on in-situ acoustic devices in combination with periodic water audits, altogether falling short of ensuring continuous system monitoring and leaving much further potential for leakage reduction. Conclusively, further dissemination and widespread implementation of automatic leakage detection technology in the near future will be paramount to contain water losses and foster robust and climate-resilient water supply systems.

Currently available computer-based technologies for leakage detection can be categorized either as data-driven or model-based, primarily depending on their requirement of a hydraulic model. Algorithms for leakage detection based on hydraulic models may accurately detect the occurrence and location of leakages, yet they are highly sensitive to model inputs and, thus, are required to be well calibrated. On the other hand, data-driven models operating on the premise of anomaly detection merely require data without any anomaly, i.e., leakage, for their calibration. However, these data-driven models cannot compete with the localisation accuracy of model-based leakage detection, as they do not incorporate geophysical information about the underlying WDN. Altogether, while yielding great improvement over in-situ technology, the requirements of automatic leakage detection technology still hamper its practical implementation. While both model-based and data-driven approaches have different requirements, their combination may ultimately enable mitigation of high technical requirements and, thus, enhance its practical applicability, thereby potentially facilitating a more efficacious, robust, and widespread implementation of leakage detection technology in water distribution networks.

In this work, we explore the trade-off between model-based and data-driven leakage detection on the basis of two award-winning state-of-the-art leakage detection algorithms developed by our consortium in previous research, i.e., the data-driven LILA and the model-based Dual Model. Through the integration of both algorithms into a unified application, we aim to mitigate technical barriers and bolster detection robustness. To validate our approach, we quantitatively evaluate its performance regarding false alarms, time-to-detection, and localisation accuracy against the individual algorithms while considering different levels of confidence and availability regarding the input data, i.e., hydraulic model, water demand estimation, and pressure data.