Towards Digitalization of Water Supply Systems for Sustainable Smart City Development—Water 4.0

Abstract

Urban water supply systems are complex and dynamic in nature, and as a result, can be considered complex to manage owing to enhanced urbanization levels, climate change, growing and varying consumer demands, and limited water resources. The operation of such a system must be managed effectively for sustainable water supply to satisfy the growing consumer demand. This creates a need for intelligent systems for the purposes of operational management. In recent years, computing technologies have been applied to water systems to assist water utilities in addressing some of these problems. Unfortunately, previous ICT solutions have not been able to provide the necessary support for applications to deal with the dynamics of water supply system environments. With the increasing growth in technology, the water sector is moving to the full phase of digitalization to enhance the sustainability of systems. Thus, a new industrial revolution in the water context (Water 4.0) is being researched. This is referred to as Water 4.0, which offers better possibilities to enhance the sustainability of water supply system operations. This paper presents an overview of Water 4.0 and its applications in enhancing water supply system operations. Key features of Water 4.0 are discussed. Furthermore, challenges and future opportunities offered by technology for sustainable operation of municipal water services are discussed.

A Formal Model for Reliable Data Acquisition and Control in Legacy Critical Infrastructures

“…The state of the art includes some previous works dealing with the WDNs' digital transformations [3,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Some initial works [3] focused on leveraging historical data to identify critical areas in the distribution network to locate pipe bursts and prioritizing pipes for rehabilitation.…”

“…For example, in Zekri et al's work [13], a digital twin supports detecting pipe bursts or unauthorized water usage. Recent works [15] have coined the term Water 4.0, in explicit parallelism with the Industry 4.0 concept [19], to highlight the smartification, data-driven orientation of modern WDNs. Under the Water 4.0 paradigm, various technologies such as cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence, as well as cloud computing, are combined to solve different management and operation problems in WDNs such as water routing [16], optimal pump control [17], and leakage detection [18].…”

A Formal Model for Reliable Data Acquisition and Control in Legacy Critical Infrastructures

“…The state of the art includes some previous works dealing with the WDNs' digital transformation [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Some initial works [11] focused on leveraging historical data to identify critical areas in the distribution network for pipe burst location and prioritizing pipes for rehabilitation.…”

IoT-Based Waste Management System in Formal and Informal Public Areas in Mecca

“…Related studies in smart cities, healthcare and waste management mostly concentrate on solid waste management, which covers various waste kinds as well as food waste. Internet of things (IoT) architecture is utilized in some studies to improve waste administration performance [ 16 , 17 , 18 ]. Study [ 4 ] proposed an integrated method for an organic waste management system to achieve sustainable OWM in the context of state policy and appropriate frameworks, suitable technology, institutional order, operational and monetary administration, and people consciousness and involvement.…”