Publicações

In regions with a strong seasonal or interannual asymmetry in the distribution of precipitation and higher frequency of droughts, collective irrigation systems are vital infrastructures for agricultural activity. Although operating for decades, several systems have ageing infrastructures, with relevant water losses and pumping energy inefficiencies. Consequently, the systems are not adequately designed or operated to meet current and future water demand. Therefore, rehabilitation to improve water and energy efficiency while ensuring infrastructure, economic sustainability and service quality is crucial. In this sense, comprehensive approaches using performance assessment to support the planning process or benchmarking between water users associations play an essential role in improving efficiency in collective irrigation systems.

Many collective irrigation systems have been operating for decades, facing high degradation of existing infrastructures and huge water-energy efficiency problems. Predominantly composed of open canals, they have been partially or entirely converted into pressurised pipe systems, implying a considerable increase in energy consumption and operation and maintenance costs. Simple, easy-to-use, and comprehensive approaches for energy efficiency assessment in collective irrigation systems are needed for diagnosis and assisting decision-making on implementing adequate improvement measures. This research proposes and demonstrates an innovative approach based on the water and energy balances and performance indicators to assess the effect of water losses, network layout and operation, energy recovery, and equipment on energy efficiency. A novel methodology for energy balance calculation is proposed for open canal, pressurised and combined systems. The application to a real-life open canal system and network areas allowed the identification of efficiency problems mainly due to water losses in canals, followed by the dissipated energy in friction losses. Less critical are pumping and manoeuvring equipment inefficiencies. Also, a considerable excess of gravity energy is recovered in hydropower plants. In raising pipe systems, in which shaft input energy predominates and costs for pumping play a key role, surplus and dissipated energy in friction losses are the most relevant issues. Significant energy is lost in the water conveyance and distribution in both systems. Consequently, the potential to improve energy efficiency through water loss management, network layout, and operation improvement, besides pumping and manoeuvring equipment replacement, is considerable.

This study compares and discusses the adequacy of surrogate resilience metrics proposed in the literature for resilience assessment of drinking water systems concerning demand increase and network redundancy. A sensitivity analysis is carried out for increasing flow rates using a conceptual case study with different layouts and demand scenarios, selecting several metrics to assess the resilience of two real network areas. Resilience metrics based on surplus energy are sensitive to network layout and demand scenarios. The network resilience index considers hydraulic reliability and network diameter uniformity. In contrast, the weighted resilience index also considers the network topology and gives importance to pipes with higher flow rates. Entropy-based resilience metrics mainly rely on the network flows' uniformity and are sensitive to pipe redundancy. The entropy metric most adequate to assess the hydraulic capacity is the diameter-sensitive flow entropy, since it is sensitive to the velocity inside the pipes. Topology metrics cannot assess the hydraulic capacity though evaluate the system redundancy (meshed-ness coefficient), robustness (central-point dominance) and water transportation efficiency (average-path length). Surrogate resilience metrics do not assess the system performance during a failure. They indicate systems which are better prepared to overcome failure events and increased demand events, providing vital information to drinking water systems management.

A global framework to assess the energy use and efficiency in wastewater systems is presented, focusing on the development of a portfolio of energy use improvement measures specifically tailored to these systems. The framework includes a performance assessment system for energy efficiency in wastewater systems and an energy balance scheme. The development and analysis of the portfolio of measures included the following steps: (i) an extensive review and compilation of existing energy improvement measures on the urban water cycle, (ii) a tailored survey addressed to multidisciplinary teams of wastewater utilities, (iii) the consolidation of the portfolio of measures for wastewater systems with the identification of main benefits and drawbacks of each measure and (iv) the discussion of the application of the improvement measures. Results from the survey for the different assessed dimensions (e.g., priority, importance) of each measure are presented together with a specific analysis of wastewater utilities. The final portfolio is instrumental for utilities to select measures, decide on the priority ones and prepare an implementation plan.

Com secas cada vez mais frequentes e prolongadas em Portugal, é necessário repensar medidas que permitam enfrentar a falta de água. A água residual tratada constitui uma fonte de água alternativa, a ser utilizada como água para reutilização (ApR) em usos compatíveis, como rega de espaços verdes e lavagem de ruas.A modelação do decaimento de cloro em Sistemas de Distribuição de ApR (SDApR) carece de estudos que proponham metodologias de implementação dos modelos, técnicas de trabalho experimental a nível laboratorial e exemplos de aplicação à escala real. A modelação contribui para promover uma gestão eficaz da desinfeção da ApR, ajudando a determinar dosagens de desinfetante, concentrações residuais nas redes e locais de cloragem.Neste artigo apresenta-se uma metodologia para modelar o decaimento de cloro em ApR usando o software EPANET-MSX. A metodologia envolveu três fases: desenvolvimento do modelo hidráulico, modelação do decaimento de cloro na água e modelação do decaimento de cloro devido às paredes do reservatório e condutas. O modelo foi aplicado num SDApR da área de Lisboa e calibrado com ensaios à escala real, permitindo simular o decaimento de cloro em diferentes pontos do SDApR ao longo do tempo e prever as necessidades de doseamento de cloro

The number of climate-related disasters has progressively increased in the last two decades and this trend will drastically exacerbate in the medium- and long-term horizons according to climate change projections. In this framework, through a multi-disciplinary team and a strong background acquired in recent projects, ICARIA aims to promote the use of asset-level modeling to achieve a better understanding of climate related tangible direct and indirect impacts on critical assets due to complex, cascading, and compound disasters. Furthermore, it takes into account the related risk reduction provided by suitable, sustainable, and cost-effective adaptation solutions. ICARIA focuses on both (i) critical assets and services that were not designed for potential climate change-related impacts that can increase the unplanned outages and failures, and (ii) on housing, natural areas, and population. Cutting edge methods regarding climate scenario building, asset-level-coupled models, and multirisk assessment approaches will be implemented and replicated in three EU regions to understand how future climate scenarios might affect critical assets and to provide decision-making support tools to private and public risk owners to assess the costs and benefits of various adaptation solutions.

This paper investigates the effect of different types of structural and operational measures on water mixing and renewal time in circular and rectangular cross-section water storage tanks, aiming at a better understanding of the flow dynamics to find practicable solutions to improve their design, rehabilitation and operation. An experimental programme, including traditional tracer and dye tracer tests, was carried out in small-scale tanks for different configurations and operating conditions. Two tanks were tested with and without interior structures, with the inlet/outlet pipes at different locations and for constant and variable water level. The main findings are that: i) the most effective measure is operating with fill-and-draw cycles, however, for tanks operated nearly full structural measures are recommendable; ii) reducing the inlet pipe diameter and installing nozzles near the tank bottom improve the mixing conditions; iii) the use of baffles is recommendable when the inlet and outlet pipes are very close.

By leveraging performance assessment systems (PASs) and incorporating targeted strategies, utilities can enhance the overall effectiveness, reliability, efficiency, and environmental performance of their wastewater treatment facilities. This work presents the results obtained from a comprehensive analysis of treatment reliability and energy performance of three wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The results allowed identifying, for each WWTP, improvement needs related to the aeration energy requirements, as well as to determine the effluent concentration targets required to achieve higher reliability levels while potentially reducing running costs. By analysing reliability combined with energy efficiency, this methodology allowed identifying the WWTPs

Climate change has emerged as a global challenge, with consequences for the environment and societies. To mitigate its impacts, reclaimed water (RW) offers potential by reducing water withdrawal and minimizing pollution discharges in the environment. Safe RW requires disinfection and a sound management of chlorine residuals throughout the RW distribution systems (RWDSs). This study focuses on implementing and calibrating a chlorine decay model using EPANET-MSX in a real RWDS, incorporating both bulk and wall decays. The bulk decay accounts for reactions of monochloramine formation, auto-decomposition, and depletion by a parallel second-order mechanism where monochloramine reacts both with fast and slow organic matter reactive fractions. Two wall decays were considered in the RWDS, one in the tank, modeled through an overall wall decay constant, and one in the pipes, modeled through a wall decay constant. Field experiments were conducted to calibrate the complete model. This model was used as a support tool to diagnose the RWDS status condition and cleaning needs, and to manage its operation. Through simulated scenarios considering monochloramine wall decays similar to those observed in drinking water distribution systems, the model allowed predicting adequate chlorine dosing in summer and winter scenarios, so as to guarantee monochloramine concentrations between 1 mg/L and 5 mg/L through the network. These results point to the potential use of much lower doses than the ones currently applied.

As afluências indevidas são identificadas como um dos principais problemas dos sistemas de águas residuais e pluviais, levando a diversos problemas de desempenho nos sistemas urbanos de água como sejam a ocorrência de inundações, a diminuição da eficiência hidráulica e energética, a redução da eficiência de tratamento na ETAR, entre outros. A atuação no controlo de afluências indevidas perspetiva oportunidades de melhoria do desempenho em várias dimensões incluindo a componente de eficiência energética. Neste artigo desenvolve-se esta temática numa perspetiva de avaliação do desempenho de instalações elevatórias (IE) embora considerando o sistema como um todo. A metodologia adotada consiste em efetuar a análise de sensibilidade de um sistema separativo de águas residuais para cenários de ocorrência de afluências indevidas à rede, de modo a avaliar o impacto no consumo de energia e noutras variáveis relevantes do sistema. O caso de estudo utilizado consiste numa adaptação do caso de estudo real correspondente ao sistema de drenagem de águas residuais da Bacia da Venteira, Amadora.A finalidade é aferir uma abordagem para tratar esta temática de modo mais geral com base no caso de estudo referido, de forma a contribuir para a sensibilização para a adoção de metodologias operacionais e de monitorização que permitam ter dados para fazer uma gestão mais racional da energia nestes sistemas. As conclusões são genericamente aplicáveis a qualquer sistema separativo de águas residuais.

The complexity of water matrices and the large range of properties and therapeutic classes of pharmaceuticals call for a deeper understanding of the key properties of activated carbons that ensure their best performance for the target pharmaceuticals. Herein we present the relations obtained between parameters of the selected pharmaceuticals, activated carbons and water matrices and the pharmaceuticals removal efficiencies from spiked secondary effluent

This paper addresses the potential application of a newly developed waste-derived PAC for controlling PhCs in CAS-WWTPs during the secondary treatment. Bench-scale tests are used to assist PAC adsorption demonstration at pilot and full scales.

Novel powdered activated carbons were prepared using locally available biomass and were benchmarked against commercially available products for the competitive adsorption of a short-list of representative pharmaceutical compounds in synthetic inorganic matrix and in spiked secondary effluents

Performance assessment has not been a common practice within storm water systems’ manage-ment, although it has proven to be an important tool in other water systems. In this context, it has been developed a performance assessment framework for storm water systems (SWS), focused on the functional component of systems, based on the definition of objectives, assessment crite-ria and performance indicators (PI). The main purpose of the present work was to apply the per-formance assessment framework with the collaboration of a Portuguese water utility, in the Al-mada municipality. It was developed a performance assessment system (PAS) by selecting objec-tives related to protection of public health and safety, infrastructural and economic sustainabil-ity, sustainable use of resources and provision of ecological and amenity benefits, and then it was calculated the performance indicators related to 2018. This application revealed that there were still areas with some vulnerabilities in terms of flooding occurrences and that parts of the storm water infrastructure needed great rehabilitation investment. Many performance indicators were not analysed due to lack of information. It was suggested data collection procedures to the water utility to overcome this problem and to be able to implement PAS in their management pro-gramme.

Urban water supply, wastewater and storm water services (globally, water services) are essential to the society. The lack of permanent, safe and respondent services has inevitable consequences on the public health and well-being of the communities, on the economy, and on the environment. Goal 6 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognises this, and failing to meet it necessarily affects the accomplishment of many of the other SDGs. Water service provision depends on expensive and long-lasting physical assets. Managing them strategically (e.g., according to the international standards on asset management, series ISO 55x and to the IWA recommendations) is therefore fundamental for sustainable societies. Countries need to have sound public policies that enable asset management, and Portugal is a paradigmatic case. This paper presents the key elements of an enabling public policy for water, using the case of Portugal to exemplify possible implementation solutions. It elaborates on key goals for governments, on the importance of a coherent public policy to meet them, on the elements a sound public policy should consider, on how this links to asset management, and presents how Portugal implemented this process, addressing challenges to overcome.

A gestão dos serviços urbanos de águas constitui uma preocupação central das entidades gestoras (EG), seja pela crescente pressão regulatória, por constituir uma prioridade para a ERSAR, seja pela necessidade de aumentar a eficiência e a sustentabilidade do serviço e ambiental. A crise económica, que afetou recentemente a atividade do setor, sublinhou esta necessidade de racionalização do uso de recursos e de justificação de investimentos. Entre as diversas áreas de atuação têm especial destaque a gestão patrimonial de infraestruturas (GPI), a gestão de perdas em sistemas de abastecimento de água e a redução de caudais afluentes indevidamente a sistemas de drenagem.

Climate change (CC) adaptation plays an important role in city and services management and resilience building, targeting the mitigation and adaptation to potential hazards in urban areas. Information technologies can play a leading role to promote fast adoption of the most relevant measures towards CC preparedness. In this paper, a web application is presented with the objective of empowering city and services managers with an accessible and reliable tool. The RESCCUE RAF App materializes a detailed CC resilience evaluation methodology with a user-friendly Web interface. It provides an evaluation of city resilience to CC impacts and urban systems vulnerabilities allowing to assess multi-sector dependencies under multiple CC scenarios. This app is integrated as a service of the Portuguese Infrastructures Roadmap, under the Infraestrutura Nacional de Computação Distribuída (INCD) infrastructure initiative that provides to the app the resources for data computation and storage, and assures its scalability to handle multiple user requests as well as database storage growth. The information provided by this app empowers city and urban services managers with an assessment allowing to know where they stand and to identify the resilience gaps, thus supporting decision on the most advantageous investments on the city and services and planning to cope with future challenges. Three case studies are being carried out in different cities (Barcelona, Lisbon and Bristol). The access to the application is made using credentials given upon request, to ensure data confidentiality. Inside the user’s area, the user can fill, in an interactive way, detailed information about the selected city, regarding multiple aspects such as financial plan per service, date of last review of the City Master Plan, history of climate hazards in the city or level of dependency between services. This information is then processed and several indicators are calculated on-the-fly. The assessment allows to identify development levels, ranging from the whole city to a more detailed assessment regarding a specific service. Data is stored at INCD’s in RESCCUE RAF app database and can be easily analyzed and extracted by the user. These results support the city and services managers in making effective decisions to plan city resilience enhancement. In this paper, a detailed presentation of the architecture and computational choices behind the RESCCUE RAF App and its Web interface and their integration in the INCD infrastructure will be presented. Given its importance, generic nature and flexible structure, the RESCCUE RAF App can be extended to other cities and, in the future, to other urban services or hazards, taking advantage of the INCD e-infrastructure. This complete and in-depth assessment of city resilience to CC challenges at Portuguese, Iberian and European scale is fundamental to plan CC adaptation and strategies implementation, preventing both human and material losses as well as environmental damages.

Designing for exceedance events has been a remediation and adaptation strategy to mitigate effects of flooding that is also being applied for new developments in an increasingly number of cities. 1D/1D modelling or simpler approaches are often applied in the design of flood flow pathways and detention areas. In this study, simple equations are obtained from the concept of the equivalent section for the estimation of street flood heights and velocities based on the results obtained for rectangular sections. Equations are discussed within a sensitivity analysis of the width and shape of street cross-section and of the roughness uncertainty in both the streets surfaces and the sewers. Results highlight that compliance with safety thresholds for the product of flood heights and velocities can be particularly sensitive to details and uncertainties on steep streets. The use of rectangular or simplified street cross-sections can significantly influence flood velocity calculations. The same applies to the uncertainty in street surface roughness and slope. Uncertainty in sewer conveyance capacity can significantly impact flood flows, heights and velocities, especially if this capacity is reduced.

Associado ao crescimento populacional, as alterações climáticas e a progressiva urbanização da sociedade têm aumentado a pressão sobre os recursos hídricos. Sendo a água um fator essencial para o desenvolvimento sustentável, é necessário promover a eficiência hídrica em todos os sectores da sociedade. A par de mudanças comportamentais no uso da água e da utilização de dispositivos mais eficientes, a reutilização da água em usos urbanos que não requeiram potabilidade permite reduzir o consumo de água de abastecimento público. O aproveitamento de água pluvial é uma medida de conservação de água que tem vindo a ser progressivamente valorizada. A presente comunicação tem por objetivo divulgar a norma europeia EN 16941-1:2018

The Technical Guide presents the 4th generation of the service quality assessment system, which abandons some 3rd generation indicators and adds new ones to respond to the latest challenges to supply services, urban waste water management and urban waste management. Changes are also made to definitions and benchmarks for some indicators are adjusted.

O projeto Avaler+

These technical guidelines provides guidance on the use of the hybrid process of powdered activate carbon adsorption and ceramic microfiltration for sustainable drinking water production. They were developed based on the field demonstration of the technology, in Portugal, with a pilot prototype, within the LIFE Hymenb project LIFE12 ENV/PT/001154 "Tailoring hybrid membrane processes for sustainable drinking water production", conducted by LNEC - the National Civil Engineering Laboratory and Águas do Algarve, S.A.

O objetivo do presente Guia é a apresentação e a especificação dosistema correspondente à 2.ª geração de avaliação da qualidade dosserviços de abastecimento de água, de saneamento de águas residuaisurbanas e de gestão de resíduos urbanos prestados pelas entidadesgestoras sujeitas a regulação.Este sistema constitui uma peça fundamental do modelo de regulaçãoem implementação pela ERSAR, sumariamente descrito neste Guia emais detalhadamente descrito em [1], nomeadamente no que respeitaà componente da regulação da qualidade do serviço, de forma a tornarpossível a avaliação quantificada.Note-se que, de acordo com o disposto na alínea e) do n.º 1 do artigo 5.ºdo Decreto-Lei n.º 277/2009, de 2 de outubro, a ERSAR tem atribuiçõesnão apenas para assegurar a regulação da qualidade de serviço prestadoaos utilizadores pelas entidades gestoras, mas também para avaliaro desempenho dessas entidades, promovendo a melhoria dos níveis deserviço. É no quadro destas atribuições que se pretende promover estesistema de avaliação da qualidade dos serviços de águas e resíduos.A 2.ª geração do sistema de avaliação da qualidade do serviço resultouda análise crítica do sistema de indicadores adotado na 1.ª geração e darespetiva aplicação desde 2004 ao universo das entidades concessionáriase teve em conta o estado atual de conhecimentos e a experiênciainternacional entretanto adquirida.Para além da identificação e da especificação de todos os componentesdo sistema de avaliação, e em particular do conjunto de indicadores dequalidade do serviço a utilizar em cada um dos três tipos de serviços,são também definidos os procedimentos de avaliação, através dadefinição da informação a obter, do cálculo de indicadores, da sua interpretaçãoe análise comparativa, numa perspetiva de benchmarking, eda produção do relatório de síntese.

N/A

O objectivo do presente Guia é a apresentação e a especificação do sistema correspondente à 2.ª geração de avaliação da qualidade dos serviços de abastecimento de água, de saneamento de águas residuais urbanas e de gestão de resíduos urbanos prestados pelas entidades gestoras sujeitas a regulação. Este sistema constitui uma peça fundamental do modelo de regulação em implementação pela ERSAR, sumariamente descrito neste Guia e mais detalhadamente descrito em [1], nomeadamente no que respeita à componente da regulação da qualidade do serviço, de forma a tornar possível a avaliação quantificada. Note-se que, de acordo com o disposto nas alíneas e) do artigo 5.º do Decreto-Lei n.º 277/2009, de 2 de Outubro, a ERSAR tem atribuições não apenas para assegurar a regulação da qualidade de serviço prestado aos utilizadores pelas entidades gestoras bem como para avaliar o desempenho dessas entidades, promovendo a melhoria dos níveis de serviço. É no quadro destas atribuições que se pretende promover este sistema de avaliação da qualidade dos serviços de águas e resíduos. A 2.ª geração do sistema de avaliação da qualidade do serviço resultou da análise crítica do sistema de indicadores adoptado na 1.ª geração e da respectiva aplicação desde 2004 ao universo das entidades concessionárias e teve em conta o estado actual de conhecimentos e a experiência internacional entretanto adquirida. Para além da identificação e da especificação de todos os componentes do sistema de avaliação, e em particular do conjunto de indicadores de qualidade do serviço a utilizar em cada um dos três tipos de serviços, são também definidos os procedimentos de avaliação, através da definição da informação a obter, do cálculo de indicadores, da sua interpretação e análise comparativa, numa perspectiva de benchmarking, e da produção do relatório de síntese.

Invited papers from the IWA Leading Edge Conference on Strategic Asset Management (LESAM), Lisbon, October 2007

A simulação matemática dos sistemas de abastecimento de água é hoje em dia uma ferramenta indispensável aos serviços de água, para apoio a uma gestão técnica racional. O campo de aplicação é variado, sendo um auxiliar das actividades de planeamento, de projecto, de operação e demanutenção. Destacam-se o apoio ao dimensionamento de novas redes, aos programas de reabilitação, ao licenciamento de novas ligações, ao controlo de perdas de água, ao controlo da qualidade da água nas redes ou à gestão optimizada de energia.Em Portugal, o desenvolvimento e a aplicação de modelos matemáticos de sistemas de distribuição de água iniciou-se na década de 80, com o modelo da rede de Almada, elaborado em 1981 pelo LNEC. Depois dealguns anos em que a actividade realizada se centrou essencialmente no ambiente científico e académico, as empresas de consultoria começaram a ganhar espaço de mercado na prestação deste tipo de serviços para as entidades gestoras. Numa fase inicial os requisitos computacionais eramconsideráveis

The number of climate-related disasters has progressively increased in the last two decades and this trend will drastically exacerbate in the medium- and long-term horizons according to climate change projections. In this framework, through a multi-disciplinary team and a strong background acquired in recent projects, ICARIA aims to promote the use of asset-level modeling to achieve a better understanding of climate related tangible direct and indirect impacts on critical assets due to complex, cascading, and compound disasters. Furthermore, it takes into account the related risk reduction provided by suitable, sustainable, and cost-effective adaptation solutions. ICARIA focuses on both (i) critical assets and services that were not designed for potential climate change-related impacts that can increase the unplanned outages and failures, and (ii) on housing, natural areas, and population. Cutting edge methods regarding climate scenario building, asset-level-coupled models, and multi-risk assessment approaches will be implemented and replicated in three EU regions to understand how future climate scenarios might affect critical assets and to provide decision-making support tools to private and public risk owners to assess the costs and benefits of various adaptation solutions.

Activated carbons are versatile adsorbents that can play a crucial role in the enhancement of wastewater treatment, namely by controlling organic microcontaminants of emerging concern (CECs) and organic matter. These materials have a 100-year market availability, large scientific testing at lab-scale and applicability in consolidated technologies. However, the use of activated carbons at full-scale wastewater treatment is still emerging, driven by the increasing awareness on environmental and human threats mainly resulting from CECs. The present chapter reviews the literature on the application of activated carbons in full- or large pilot-scale plants, highlighting the state-of-art knowledge on practical issues on operational set-ups, improvements on water overall quality, and costs. The selection criteria and properties of the powdered and granular (PAC and GAC) materials used, and the pros and critical aspects of their application, relevant for product development and process optimisation, are also analysed and determine the research needs proposed for a technical, economic, and environmentally sustainable application of activated carbon in full-scale advanced wastewater treatment.

Urban areas are dynamic, complex, and vulnerable systems involving multiple strategic services such as water supply, wastewater, and stormwater and waste management. Climate-change trends may directly affect the urban water cycle, through heavy rainfall, tides, and droughts, potentially causing cascading impacts with serious consequences for people, the natural and built environments, and the economy. These challenges to urban areas require an integrated and sustainable approach to increase their resilience, with the allocation of the needed resources, including the development and implementation of disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies, plans, and regulations in all relevant sectors. This chapter describes a resilience-assessment framework to be used by cities and urban-service managers. It considers a structured and objective-driven assessment aiming at supporting the development and monitoring of cities' and urban services' resilience action plans, thus contributing to appropriate DRR investments. Our approach considers four resilience dimensions: organizational, spatial, functional, and physical. It is aligned with the UNDRR's Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities and addresses the priorities of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. In this chapter, we apply the resilience-assessment framework to the waste and mobility sectors in Lisbon (Portugal), identifying main opportunities to enhance their resilience and supporting the development of resilience and DRR strategies.

Atualmente os sistemas urbanos de água são reconhecidos como infraestruturas in­dispensáveis de suporte para a prestação de serviços públicos de primeira necessida­de à saúde e bem-estar das populações e à economia das sociedades

Urban areas are dynamic, complex, and vulnerable systems involving multiple strategic urban services, stakeholders, and citizens. Strategic services essential to society include water and sewerage (water supply, and wastewater and stormwater management), waste management, energy supply, public lighting, transport, and public security. The potential effects of climate dynamics on the urban areas might lead to the aggravation of existing fragile conditions and the emergence of new hazards or risk factors, with major impacts on strategic urban services, people, the natural and built environment, and the economy. Climate change challenges to urban areas thus require an integrated and sustainable approach to increase their resilience, with the allocation of the needed resources at all administrative levels. These include the development and implementation of disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies, policies, plans, laws, and regulations in all relevant sectors (UNISDR, 2015). This chapter describes a resilience assessment framework to be used by cities and urban-service managers. The framework considers a structured and objective-driven assessment aiming at supporting the development and monitoring of cities

This chapter briefly presents concepts and methodologies to support the management of urban drainage infrastructure. After the introduction, data requirements for assessing the condition of urban drainage systems are presented. Data can be collected in different ways. Data analysis allows for determining structural and functional issues and system performance. The causes and consequences of failures are required for condition assessment and are the subject of the risk section. Any intervention in the urban drainage system has a cost that must be assessed. Mathematical modelling of the urban drainage systems has an advantage for evaluating the hydraulic and structural performance. Decisions on the management of urban drainage rehabilitation need to be addressed considering the different points of view or aspects that are often contradictory. This may be addressed by using multi-criteria decision analysis methodologies.

Urban water services make use of extensive networked infrastructures - water supply and drainage systems. Efficient management of these services relies on the quality of measurements of hydraulic variables in pipes and sewers to support robust analysis of systems

Urban water services make use of extensive networked infrastructures

Rainwater harvesting systems (RWHS) can result in important benefits, but there are a number of potential negative risks. The risks associated with RWHS depend on several factors and duly consideration is required to ensure that risks associated with this type of solutions are low. Therefore, a generic and systematic approach to manage risk is required. This chapter introduces a brief overview of concepts and terminology adopted. Subsequently, an overview of common approaches to risk management is presented. The chapter focuses on specific aspects for the application of these approaches to RWHS, with emphasis on risk identification, specific risk treatment action, and monitoring. Different approaches on how to determine risks such as water safety plan (WSP), risk management process (RMP), and hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) can be used, but all of them have some common steps.

Conventional treatment processes for the removal of cyanobacteria and cyanotoxins are thoroughly described in this chapter, including chemical treatment (heavy metals, herbicides, and photosensitizers), coagulation/flocculation combined with air flotation, and various adsorption processes.

This research aims at developing a comprehensive approach for assessing the energy use and efficiency in wastewater systems, considering the water-energy-greenhouse gas (W-E-G) emissions nexus supported by methods and tools, such as a tailored energy balance and a performance assessment system (PAS). This approach is aligned with continuous improvement principles and allows carrying out the diagnosis of energy efficiency in wastewater systems supporting the building of a portfolio of energy use improvement measures responding to strategic objectives and attending to the systems

Drinking water storage tanks are essential components of water supply systems to store water, to level off pressure in networks and to meet emergency storage. They are also frequent sources of deterioration of drinking water quality and safety owing to inadequate tank design and operation. Mostly, existing tanks design, dimensions and operation do not account for water mixing and renewal.

Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) are crucial to achieving the goals of the United Nations Agenda 2030 for sustainable development and other global agendas, such as the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. In the last decade, the NBS umbrella concept has become more relevant intending to contribute to urban resilience and to address the climate change challenges. NBS are living solutions inspired by nature that use or mimic natural processes intending to face several societal challenges, from the perspective of resource-efficient use and the promotion of economic and environmental benefits. Currently, cities are encouraged to understand and measure the NBS contribution to identify adequate strategies for enhancing resilience and prioritize investments accordingly. The objective of the present thesis is to promote and enhance the NBS implementation in cities, focused on solutions for stormwater management and control. Based on the analysis of their contribution to urban resilience, the potential to meet environmental, social, and economic challenges and to adapt across diverse urban scales and contexts is demonstrated. In this sense, a Resilience Assessment Framework (RAF) to assess the NBS contribution to urban resilience was developed. This framework aims to assess the NBS contribution to urban resilience. Moreover, a Guidance for the RAF application in cities with different resilience maturity was developed, which involved the RAF validation by seven cities (from a national and international context), that participated voluntarily in this phase. In this context, the developed RAF is comprehensive and multidimensional. It is driven by the definition of objectives, criteria, and metrics, according to the proposed structure for assessing the water supply and wastewater system service performance in the framework of the ISO 24500 standards of the International Organization for Standardization. For an oriented assessment of the criteria, qualitative and quantitative metrics were defined, considering data from different sources and complexity. Reference values were also identified and metrics' classifications were defined. In this classification, each answer is associated with a resilience development level, intending to assess the NBS contribution to urban resilience on a normalized scale. To support the RAF application to cities with different resilience maturity (in terms of resilience and available information), three analysis degrees (essential, complementary, and comprehensive) and a set of metrics were proposed, which are pre-defined in the guidance for the RAF application. To support the selection of the analysis degree more adequate to any city, a structure to characterize the city's profile was developed. This complementary profile also supports the interpretation of the RAF results, both at the city and at the level of specific NBS. To conclude, the application of the RAF essential analysis degree to the seven participating cities, with different challenges regarding urban resilience and NBS, and of the comprehensive analysis degree (complete RAF) to Porto´s urban area, through an assemble assessment at the city and NBS levels, were presented.

Over the past two decades, performance assessment (PA) has been one of the areas show-ing the greatest advancement in the water sector. PA aims to measure effectiveness and/or efficiency of an activity or process using performance metrics, supporting the decision-making process and the continuous improvement of water utilities. Despite the potential benefits, few projects, and initiatives on PA have been undertaken regarding storm water systems (SWS). The present thesis aims to develop a performance assessment framework (PAF), applicable to both conventional SWS and sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS), objective driven and focused on systems

Infrastructure asset management (IAM) has been increasingly becoming a key topic in the mind-set shift of the water sector managers and policy makers, allowing to assist in the operational, tactical and strategic decision-making in urban water infrastructures. Nevertheless, IAM implementation by the water utilities is still far from needed and not widespread, due to several challenges and constraints, mainly associated with limited human, technological and financial resources. The current research aims at enhancing urban water infrastructure asset management through an integrated decision-making approach, that includes novel methodologies for condition assessment, service life prediction and cost modelling. This approach can be applied at three assessment levels

Este trabalho tem como objetivo melhorar a eficiência energética dos sistemas de abastecimento de água através do desenvolvimento de uma metodologia orientada por objetivos e com recurso ao balanço energético e a métricas de desempenho que permitem identificar as principais origens de ineficiência energética dos sistemas, comparar diferentes alternativas de intervenção e contribuir para a melhoria contínua destes sistemas.A metodologia de investigação seguida contempla desenvolvimentos científicos aliados a uma aplicação prática num conjunto alargado de casos de estudo através de ferramentas de cálculo automático desenvolvidas para o efeito. Os desenvolvimentos científicos consistem na formulação matemática de um balanço energético flexível em termos de dados necessários para a sua implementação; o desenvolvimento de métricas de desempenho que permitem identificar a origem das ineficiências energéticas (equipamentos, perdas de água ou configuração e operação) e a sua sistematização numa metodologia que segue os princípios de melhoria contínua (Plan-Do-Check-Act). A aplicação a casos de estudo é efetuada em três etapas. A primeira etapa consiste na aplicação do balanço energético agregado e métricas de desempenho para diagnosticar ineficiências a nível global em sistemas sem modelo matemático. A segunda etapa consiste na aplicação de um balanço detalhado com recurso a modelos matemáticos, bem como uma análise de sensibilidade aos diferentes métodos. A terceira etapa centra-se na aplicação detalhada de dois casos de estudo para ilustrar a metodologia.Os principais resultados são: i) uma metodologia integrada para o diagnóstico água-energia em sistemas de abastecimento de água; ii) um novo balanço energético para sistemas de abastecimento de água; iii) resultados da aplicação do balanço e das métricas de eficiência energética em 110 sistemas; iv) ferramentas para cálculo das diferentes formulações de balanço energético e de métricas de desempenho; e v) valores reais e exemplos de soluções não convencionais que conduziram a melhorias de desempenho energético.

As estações de tratamento de águas residuais (ETAR) são atualmente alvo de esforços de melhoria do seu desempenho técnico, ambiental e económico. Empresas, reguladores e organismos de financiamento têm utilizado sistemas de avaliação de desempenho para apoiar as suas decisões. Neste contexto, o LNEC desenvolveu a 1.ª e 2.ª geração do sistema de avaliação de desempenho (PAS) de ETAR baseado em indicadores (PIs) e índices de desempenho (PXs). Para ambos, os valores de referência para o julgamento do desempenho são elementos chave. Apesar de serem elementos cruciais, os valores de referência precisavam ainda de ser definidos para avaliar e melhorar o desempenho das ETAR com foco na eficiência energética e gestão de afluências pluviais. Assim, o objetivo da tese foi desenvolver a terceira geração do PAS com valores de referência para avaliar o desempenho. Os PIs e PXs focam os objetivos principais da ETAR, ou seja, garantir a sustentabilidade técnica, econômica e ambiental, garantindo um tratamento eficaz e fiável com o consumo mínimo de energia, reagentes e produção de lamas. A estratégia seguida consistiu em desenvolver ou selecionar a partir da segunda geração do PAS sub-conjuntos de PIs e PXs de acordo com os objetivos, nomeadamente, eficácia, fiabilidade, desempenho energético e consumo de reagentes e gestão das lamas. Os valores de referência foram derivados com base numa revisão da literatura, equações empíricas e/ou estudos de campo e, sempre que aplicável, incorporam o efeito de parâmetros chave, de modo a avaliar o efeito das variações de caudal e de concentração. Foi desenvolvida uma análise estatística dos PXs para avaliar a fiabilidade da ETAR. Foi também demonstrada a flexibilidade do sistema de avaliação de desempenho para diferentes objetivos e uma abordagem para diagnosticar oportunidades de melhoria do desempenho, utilizando os PIs e PXs num ciclo PDCA (plan-do-check-act).

Este trabalho de investigação teve como objectivo principal propor, aplicar e validar uma metodologia que permitisse transformar dados de consumo urbano de água, obtidos a partir de sistemas de telemetria, em informação útil para a gestão dos serviços de água e para os consumidores.A metodologia encontra-se estruturada em quatro módulos: planeamento e monitorização,processamento de dados, produção de informação de caracterização e previsão eclassificação. Tirando partido de dados de consumo telemedidos aos vários níveis, desde o cliente individual às zonas de medição e controlo (ZMC), procede-se à aplicação dametodologia para caracterização de grandes consumidores, previsão do consumodoméstico nocturno, avaliação do efeito da variação de pressão no consumo autorizado enas perdas de água e previsão do consumo em ZMC.Para além da metodologia estruturada para a análise de consumos, as principaiscontribuições inovadoras são o desenvolvimento de modelos de previsão e de classificação do consumo em ZMC, em função das variáveis explicativas mais significativas, e a obtenção de expressões para a variação do consumo autorizado e das perdas reais com a pressão.O trabalho desenvolvido contribuirá para um uso mais eficiente da água, através de ummelhor conhecimento sobre as várias componentes do consumo urbano de água, assimcomo para o estabelecimento de critérios de projecto e de exploração da rede maissustentados.

Os serviços de abastecimento de água (SAA) têm vindo a incorporar princípios desustentabilidade na sua prática de gestão. O estado da arte em metodologias de avaliação dedesempenho de SAA mostrou a necessidade de abordar especificamente o tratamento,considerado insatisfatoriamente nas abordagens sistematizadas existentes.Na presente dissertação desenvolveu-se um sistema de avaliação de desempenho (PAS) deestações de tratamento de água (ETA), orientado por objectivos, normalizado e quantitativo,destinado a apoiar a tomada de decisão, e cobrindo os domínios qualidade da água tratada,eficiência/fiabilidade, utilização de água, energia e materiais, gestão de subprodutos, segurança,recursos humanos e económico financeiros.O PAS integra uma componente para avaliação do desempenho global, baseada em indicadoresde desempenho, e uma componente para avaliação do desempenho operacional, baseada emíndices de desempenho que avaliam, numa escala 0-300, a qualidade da água tratada, eficiênciasdas várias operações/processos unitários (OPU) e sua relação com condições de operação.Foi desenvolvida uma ferramenta de cálculo automático do PAS.A aplicação do PAS a cinco ETA de características diversas permitiu avaliar a evoluçãotemporal do seu desempenho, comparar estações e OPU, e identificar oportunidades de melhoriana operação das OPU, na qualidade da água tratada e utilização de recursos.

This report offers a preliminary overview of the main drivers and barriers related to the policy and governance dimensions across the six Living Labs of B-WaterSmart: Alicante (Spain), Bodø (Norway), East Frisia (Germany), Flanders (Belgium), Lisbon (Portugal) and Venice (Italy). It provides an overview of the policy framework with implications for water management in the European Union, including the main plans and strategies related to adaptation to climate change and implementation of a circular economy, along the nexus water-energy-resources-waste. Furthermore, we added a section that describes succinctly the main models of water governance in Europe.

The main objective of the EMPOWER+ project is to develop new high-performing GACs and PACs and reusable magnetic powdered activated carbons (MPACs), prepared by steam and CO2 activation of pine nut shells (PNS/Steam and PNS/CO2 activated carbons) following the protocol developed for PACs under the framework of LIFE Impetus project.

MS16 consists of the first, preliminary version, V0, of the B-WaterSmart Assessment Framework (BWS AF) developed by WP6 in Task 6.2. The MS16 is composed of an excel file and this document. The excel file provides the list of elements forming the framework: the strategic objectives, the assessment criteria and the metrics proposed. This document, after background information about the BWS AF use, scope and development phases, describes the structure and the elements listed in the excel file. All the information provided by MS16 will be embedded into a web-application by end of April 2022, so to facilitate the validation phase carried out by the InAll, during the period April-August 2022.The planning of the period to release the web-application has been agreed with Task 1.4 and it is aligned with the activities planned within the InAll. Given the continuous work on refinement of metrics planned in collaboration with the InAll, the web-application, as well as this MS16, will be kept as living files for updating as and when required until the V2 of the BWS AF will be finalized.

Este trabalho envolve dois aspetos diferenciadores face a estudos anteriores: Diagnóstico aprofundado do subsistema D.S5-EEA3, quer espacial quer temporalmente, recorrendo à modelação hidráulica, aos cenários de operação de inverno e verão e cobrindo aspetos como a pressão, velocidade e idade da água na situação de referência e futura.Especificação e análise comparativa de alternativas (desempenho, custos, benefícios) para a sua priorização atendendo ao seu impacto a médio e longo-prazo (e.g., 10 anos e 20 anos).O diagnóstico aprofundado e a priorização de alternativas atenderão à evolução futura do sistema mediante cenários que serão identificados em conjunto com a EG, designadamente, alteração nos padrões de uso da água potável em usos não potáveis, com redução do seu uso para, por exemplo, rega de espaços públicos verdes, lavagem de ruas, climatização e alterações de contexto interno (e.g., expansão da rede do subsistema D.S5-EEA3). Este relatório visa apresentar a metodologia e o sistema de avaliação para diagnóstico aprofundado de subsistemas.

One of the key objectives of B-WaterSmart is to deliver a water-smartness assessment framework (BWS AF) fully tested in the six living labs (LLs) of the project. This deliverable aims at providing first recommendations to support both the refinement of the BWS AF and the development of the corresponding dashboard. This deliverable describes (i) the approach followed to obtain the recommendations within the innovation alliance (InAll), the InAll process (Task 1.4), and an overview of the testing process of BWS AF version V0 (delivered by WP6). It further presents (ii) the feedback on the framework from the LL problem-owners (LLi) (with support from WP6 for feedback collection and processing of raw results), the respective analysis, and subsequent recommendations both for refinement of the framework, and the development of the dashboard-type software to facilitate its use.

D6.2 consists of the Version 1 of the B-WaterSmart Assessment Framework (BWS AF) developed by WP6 under Task 6.2. V1 builds on the V0 (MS16), which provided the preliminary list of the elements forming the framework. MS16 built on the theoretical background given by D6.1, describing the preliminary conceptual design of the framework. V1 is a transitional step between V0 and the final version V2 (by Task 6.3). To deliver V1, first the information provided by MS16 have been embedded into a web-application, to facilitate a validation phase carried out by the Innovation Alliance (InAll) under the coordination of Task 1.4 in the period April-August 2022. Afterwards, the InAll have been trained to the use of the web application and, by using the feedback forms made available, their insights have been shared with Task 6.2. The feedback has been analyzed by Task 6.2 in September and either already addressed in V1 or included in this document as input to Task 6.3. D6.2 is composed therefore by this supporting document and the web-application incorporating the updated version of the BWS-AF allowing further testing by the InAll. This document consists of two parts: part I includes background information about the BWS AF scope, the description of the co-creation process established with the InAll, and the updated version of the elements forming the framework V1 (incorporated in the web-application), as well as the aggregated analysis of the feedbacks provided by the InAll. Part II addresses Task 3.9, which will convert the BWS AF V2 into a dashboard, by sharing insights based on the experience gained during the development of the web-application and the validation phase. Last, D6.2 is closely related with D1.3 describing the scope and process of validation of V0 and also providing insights to Task 6.3 and Task 3.9 from the InAll perspective.

O projeto AGIR

O projeto AGIR

No Projeto

This deliverable introduces two of WP1

EXCLUSIVO: AWARE-P vence prémio alemão e conquista novo reconhecimento internacional: É a primeira vez que é distinguido um projecto de um país que não fala alemão, entrevista de Ana Santiago (Jornalista do Jornal Água & Ambiente - Portal Ambiente Online) a Helena Alegre, 19 de Agosto de 2014

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