In control of water quantity and quality
Water authorities usually operate in a challenging environment in which cooperation among many stakeholders is necessary to achieve water management goals. Water safety and water quality requirements depend on agricultural needs, governmental water safety regulations, environmental standards, fishery, ecology, interests of water utilities and hydropower generation. In this web of stakeholders, real time availability of correct and ready-to-use information for decision making is a crucial aspect for success. Yet in many organizations data resides in different databases, spread over different departments, only accessible by specialists. Only by phone or e-mail request, or for annual or project-based reporting, data is gathered and compiled to useful information.
StellaSpark Nexus enables water authorities to approaches this differently by connecting existing data sources within and outside the organization, and presenting this information in one central hub. Water-related measurements, stored in databases such as for example Delft-FEWS or WISKI can combined with asset locations such as pumps, weirs and sewage treatment plants. This data can then be enriched with information about things like environmental permits, ecological requirements and flood safety levels of levees. Nexus allows this information to be presented in different themes, through a web-based viewer.
Enriching the hub with partner data
Groundwater abstraction wells of water utilies, cadastral boundaries of farmlands, location of flood-critical infrastructure, underground power cables, drinking water mains, sewer capacity: whatever data stakeholders in the water cycle have, Nexus can connect to it and fuse it with data of water authorities. Geolocated social media feeds and service calls by citizens can also be connected and presented in relevant themes.
Monitoring policy goals
After connecting the different data sources, Nexus can calculate useful metrics, like required evacuation time in case of flooding events, potential of (blue-)green roof solutions on building or neighborhood level or odour nuisance around wastewater treatment plants. It is also possible to pinpoint possible locations with infrastructure malfunction, environmental pollution incidents or to track and predict quality of swimming locations (e.g. algea bloom).
Data-driven cooperation
Water authorities can use Nexus to share data with citizens or partner organizations, such as drinking water utilities, emergency services, municipalities and provincial governments, whereas desired. Using Nexus as a single source of truth for relevant information about certain policy themes enables net-centric cooperation between partner organizations on those themes. Needless to say, with Nexus organizations have full control on what they share, and what they don’t.