Pioneering Next Generation project for smart water management on the Costa Dorada

The Mancomunitat Gestora de Recursos Hídricos de Salou, Vila-seca and Agbar have presented the i-WaterS project to digitize and adapt the water cycle to climate change in the two municipalities.

Next Generation Costa Dorada Project

This project, which includes fourteen actions, has a budget of 6.6 million euros and is eligible for funding from the Ministry for Ecological Transition within the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan with the Next Generation fund.

This initiative seeks to provide the integral water cycle of these two populations with a system of sensors and digital tools that allow it to react in real time to any situation that affects both the supply network and the sanitation network.

The weight of the tourism sector in Salou and Vila-seca means that both the water supply and sanitation management are aspects of vital importance for their main economic activity. The objective of the project is to provide the Mancomunitat de Salou and Vila-seca with new digitization tools that improve the efficiency of the system.

If it receives the green light, the project will begin in the third quarter of this year and would have an execution period of 28 months. Of the total investment of 6.6 million, 3.8 million correspond to actions in Salou and the rest, 2.7 million, in Vilaseca.

The initiative revolves around the creation of a digital platform, with technology developed by Agbar, which makes it possible to optimize the management of the integral water cycle, and holistically integrates all internal and external variables. This hub The operating system will control all the facilities thanks to the deployment of a network of sensors.

Among the actions planned, there is the implementation of the telemide, which allows real-time control of water quality and remote control of the pumping stations|pumping of wastewater, a fact that will prevent discharges into the environment in the event of torrential rains. Likewise, the monitoring of energy consumption will improve the energy efficiency of infrastructures and equipment.

According to Agbar, the project i-WaterS It will increase the water resilience of the two municipalities that make up the Mancomunitat Gestora de los Recursos Hídrics, which have more than 50,000 inhabitants, given the water scarcity that affects the countries of the Mediterranean basin, with increasingly frequent droughts.

It will also allow, among other things, the improvement of the state of the water masses of the public hydraulic domain, with the monitoring of discharges.

The initiative will mean an advance in transparency in water management, since tools will be implemented to have more information on the service open to administrations and with indicators available to the public. In addition, the project proposes a new governance model based on alliances, co-creation and citizen participation.

The Mancomunitat and Agbar project will reduce the environmental impact of the urban water cycle services and will contribute to promoting the Objectives of Sustainable Development (SDG), specifically, those related to the preservation of water resources, with the reduction of the footprint of carbon and with the digitization of municipalities.