Online Monitoring and Digital Control in drinking water distribution systems

Ensuring the distribution of high-quality water from various sources to consumers is critical for guaranteeing public health. While standard water quality parameters are monitored at the respective source, it is still a challenge to monitor water quality in the water distribution system itself and it is mostly connected to time-consuming measurements and laboratory examinations.

MoDiCon connects German and Israeli partners from academia and industry and plans on building a digital framework for monitoring and controlling water quality online in water distribution systems by integrating model testing and validation at a water utility location.

The Israeli part, represented by the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, will incorporate simulating relevant water quality parameters and developing a method for rapid anomalies detection, as well as for optimal sensor placement. The German partners, Hamburg University of Technology and Technische Universität Ilmenau, will take the lead in experimental validation of the simulated parameters and development of response and recovery methods through rapid control strategies respectively. Through cooperation with industrial partners the applicability of leading-edge sensors for online monitoring of bacterial content, dissolved organic carbon and assimilable organic carbon will be explored and continuously validated at a test bed provided by Hamburg Wasser utility.

The overall goal of the MoDiCon project is to utilize innovative online monitoring techniques to validate water quality modelling in water distribution systems in real time, while being able to respond to evolving events of water quality deterioration.