Open Innovation 2.0 Yearbook 2013 - European Commission - Europa

72 O P E N I N N O V A T I O N 2 0 1 3
or theft. In the United Kingdom, 3.4 billion litres of
water are lost daily through leakage [17]. In Mumbai,
India, 700 million litres of water are lost daily
through leakages and illegal connections [18]. The
average leakage rate in Latin American cities is
35 % [19]. But there are also issues with existing
infrastructure simply being inadequate to meet
growing needs. In Brazil, inadequate water and
sewage treatment facilities mean that more than
half of all cities are at risk of water shortages by
2015 [20]. For cities, governments and utilities,
enhancing and expanding infrastructure is costly. In
the United States alone, USD 1 trillion is required
by 2025 to fix ageing water infrastructure problems
[21]. Of course, financial constraints for many
cities and regions mean investment on the massive
scale required is not a viable option, so new ways
of managing our infrastructure need to be found.
Infrastructure issues impact other water issues
— ageing water or sewer pipes are more prone to
failures that can contaminate water, and also contribute
to water stress through the inability to balance
supply and demand, as well as worsening the
impact of flooding.
Changes in the hydrological cycle are creating
more frequent and intense episodes of flooding
that result in significant human and financial costs.
Globally, between 1980 and mid-2012, more than
4 000 flood disasters affected 3.5 billion people,
killed 6.9 million and caused USD 559 billion of
damage [22]. Unfortunately, these problems are
set to worsen and we expect that by 2050, the
global population at risk from flooding will grow
33 %, from 1.2 billion to 1.6 billion [23]. Flooding
adversely impacts water quality as surface contaminants
enter water supplies, so if we are not
adequately addressing this problem, our existing
issues with water quality will also worsen. Over
2 million tonnes of sewage and industrial and agricultural
waste are already being discharged into the
world’s waters every day [24]. In the United States
alone, sewer overflows discharge up to 850 billion
gallons of wastewater annually [25]. On a global
scale, despite access to clean water being enshrined
in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, we still
have a situation whereby over 780 million people
worldwide do not have access to safe water [26].
Our water quality problems are also worsening as
the number of people without access to safe water
is expected to rise to 2 billion by 2025 [27].
Against the backdrop of these challenges is the
critical role the water industry needs to play in
helping to effectively address these problems. The
problem is that the industry itself is experien cing
problems in the form of a looming skills crisis as
large numbers of older workers retire, and the
industry is struggling to attract and retain younger
workers. In the United States, for example, between
30 % and 50 % of the workforce is expected to
retire by 2020 [28]. Similar challenges exist in
Australia, where a Water Industry Skills Taskforce
was founded in 2008 to address the water sector
skills shortage as 40 000 additional workers need
to be recruited by 2019, half of the existing workforce
[29]. The challenge here for the industry is
to try and improve the ability to attract younger
— and increasingly tech-savvy — workers into the
industry so they can play their part in helping to
solve these challenges.
Open innovation focused on existing
available solutions can help to more
effectively address these challenges
Amid all these challenges is some good news. We
already have the means at our disposal to more
effectively address these challenges and so open
innovation can be a core enabler in helping us to
more effectively solve these problems.
Solutions already exist that can help us build
a ‘smarter’ more intelligent water management
system where information and analytics are used
to deliver improved outcomes right across the
water management life cycle. We can leverage
existing solutions and capabilities for fast, automated
collation of information from varied sources
to increase situational awareness and to merge
structured and unstructured data from multiple
sources to create a holistic view of water systems
at multiple scales. Solutions already exist that can
build a more interconnected system where there
is efficient information-sharing to deliver a realtime
common operating picture and drive more
effective decision-making and effective collaboration
across services, agencies, suppliers and user
communities. Predictive analytics and information
mining solutions can be used to identify trends and
hotspots, and specify preventative action based on
more comprehensive, timely information to improve
planning, scheduling and tactical decision-making.
Indeed, many forward-looking utilities and businesses
are already using these tools and solutions
to address the issues we have just outlined — from
Dubuque, Iowa, to Sonoma in the United States, to
Galway Bay in Ireland and many other areas around
the world.
For example, smarter water management enables
users to more effectively manage demand and
helps utilities better manage supplies by collecting
data on water demand and supply from sensors
and smart meter systems across utilities or