Water is increasingly taking center stage when it comes to coping with climate change. Especially in urban areas, negative consequences from heavy rainfall events and prolonged dry periods are rising worldwide. In the past, the various tasks of urban water management were performed by different departments that often did not cooperate with each other (water supply, wastewater disposal, green space irrigation, etc.), as the required water supply was not a question of available water volumes. This is already changing with climate change, in some cases even dramatically. More and more, it is necessary to consider how to distribute available water resources in urban areas, especially during dry periods, since wastewater treatment is also becoming more complex and costly. In the future, urban water management will examine water use in terms of its various objectives, and will need to provide alternative water resources for these different purposes (groundwater, river water, storm water, treated wastewater, etc.). The necessary technological interconnection requires intelligent digital systems. Furthermore, the water industry must also play its role in global CO2 reduction and make its procedural treatment processes more efficient; this will also only succeed with adequate digital systems. Although digitization has experienced an enormous surge in development over the last five years and numerous solutions are available to address the challenges described previously, there is still a large gap between the scope of offerings and their implementation. Researchers at Hof University of Applied Sciences have investigated the reasons for this imbalance as part of WaterExe4.0, the first meta-study on digitization in the German-speaking water industry, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Only 11% of roughly 700 identified products, projects and studies relate to real applications. For example, the surveyed experts of the water sector stated that everyday problems are considered too little or hardly at all in new solutions, which greatly overburdens users. Furthermore, they see no adequate possibility for a systematic analysis of new ideas to identify significant obstacles and to find the best way to start and implement a digitization project. The results from four methodologically different sub-surveys (literature and market research, survey, expert interviews and workshops) provide a reliable overview of the current situation in the German-speaking water industry and its expectations for the future. The results are also transferable to other countries.

Das iwe-Institut für Wasser und Energiemanagement an der Hochschule Hof hat eine Metastudie zum Stand der Digitalisierung der Wasserwirtschaft in den deutschsprachigen Ländern durchgeführt. Das Fazit: Die Digitalisierung ist zu einem festen Bestandteil technologischer Lösungen und strategischer Entscheidungen geworden. In einer dreiteiligen Serie berichtet die WasserWirtschaft über die Ergebnisse der Studie. Im zweiten Teil der Serie geht es um die Erkenntnis, dass Technik nicht alles ist - und wie Menschen auf dem Weg der Digitalisierung mitgenommen werden können.

Das iwe-Institut für Wasser und Energiemanagement an der Hochschule Hof hat eine Metastudie zum Stand der Digitalisierung der Wasserwirtschaft in den deutschsprachigen Ländern durchgeführt. Das Fazit: Die Digitalisierung ist zu einem festen Bestandteil technologischer Lösungen und strategischer Entscheidungen geworden. In einer dreiteiligen Serie wird die WasserWirtschaft über die Ergebnisse der Studie berichten. In dieser Ausgabe beginnen die Autoren mit einer Übersicht: Wo finden sich Digitalisierungselemente verstärkt wieder und welche digitalen Lösungen dominieren aktuell?

When it comes to addressing climate change, water is at the centre of many aspects and measures. Especially in urban areas where the negative consequences of heavy rainfall events and prolonged dry periods are increasing worldwide. In the future, urban water management will have to examine water use in terms of its various objectives and provide alternative water resources for different purposes (groundwater, river water, rainwater, treated wastewater, etc.). The technological networking of water management systems requires intelligent and digital systems to manage the challenges of the future. Similarly, the contribution of water management to global CO2 reduction through more efficient procedural treatment processes will only succeed with adequate digital systems ((Balogun, 2020), (Kröhling, 2017), (Randhahn, 2020)) Researchers at Hof University of Applied Sciences have investigated the status quo of digitization within the first meta-study in the German-speaking water industry (WaterExe 4.0 project) funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The research was conducted with four methodologically different sub-surveys (literature and market research, survey, expert interview and workshops). 120 industry participants took part in an online survey and 30 water sector experts were interviewed.

Innovative digital developments from industry like autonomous machine controls based on intelligent data acquisition, collection and evaluation, promises better adapting municipal infrastructure systems to changing conditions. When the technology initiative KOMMUNAL 4.0 was developed as an idea in 2015, digitalization was not a central topic in water management. As Industry 4.0 was present everywhere in the media, the idea of transferring suitable parts of the basic idea of Industry 4.0 to municipal water management was born. In particular, it was necessary to implement consistent IT and IoT communication at all levels of water management tasks. The aim was not only to create a uniform structure for networking a wide variety of applications, but also to round off KOMMUNAL 4.0’s complete range of services with IoT for existing and newly developed products and solutions. Regardless of whether it concerns measurement and data technology applications, smart machines, SCADA or asset management systems, all application solutions contain a standardized network core that guarantees standard data communication and also complying with safety and cybersecurity requirements.