An international team of specialists, including a team of Sofiyska Voda AD and ViK – Sofia region, is running two new crisis simulation exercises, part of the European Aqua3S project. Other than Sofia, five more European cities participate in the project – Thessaloniki, Paris, Brussels, Trieste and Limassol. The idea is to use new satellite, sensor and online technologies to develop secure protection against pollution of drinking water sources from various agents. In October, in Thessaloniki, the teams ran a simulation exercise of pollution of the main water source of the Greek capital with pesticides and oil spills, leading to interruption of the operation of the potable water treatment plant. What is interesting in this plot is that it actually occurred a few years ago and the city faced a serious risk. Now, after the developed sensors and technologies under the Aqua3S project, the simulation passed successfully, and the newly created prevention system proved its efficiency.  

A month later, the team under the international project ran another emergency situation simulation, this time in Brussels, the capital of Belgium. Now the operation of the platform developed under the project was tested, as it collected data from different sources – sensors, customers’ complaints, information from the social networks and a module for assessment of the response in case crisis situations with water pollution in the water network occur as a result of heavy rainfalls in the area of the pilot test. 

We recall that in the summer of 2022, in Sofia, the dedicated international team “successfully responded” in real time to an alert for serious pollution of the water in the Iskar Dam as a result of strong plankton bloom. With the help of satellite monitoring of the water source, information from the social networks and thanks to the sensors installed on a buoy floating in the Iskar Dam and transferring directly data on the quality of the water in the dam, this risk has already been placed under supervision and the simulation showed that the developed technology is reliable.      

These and many other interesting moments from the project can be seen on the forthcoming online event of Aqua3S on 13 December. Find out how to register here: https://lnkd.in/dpe5TFBK