Photo, fom left to right: Melanie Tankerville (KWR), Nazaré Lopes Rebola, Vera Lucia Meira Marmelo and Luís Manuel Lourenço Mendes (EPAL).

EPAL (Drinking water utility in Lisbon) and KWR Watercycle Research Institute have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish cooperation in science and technology. The MoU will focus on drinking water quality and asset management. EPAL has recently opened new laboratory facilities. In order to fully exploit the advanced laboratory facilities, EPAL would like to develop a research programme to understand critical water quality issues in the water supply chain. This should be part of the risk assessment and risk management procedures (Water Safety Plan) that EPAL has in place.

The MoU fits within the KWR strategy to support watercycle stakeholders in Europe who wish to improve their service to customers and society in general by providing them with the most relevant and high level technical and socio-economic scientific knowledge and evidence-based best practices and policies.

Network analysis with Cavlar

In the first area of cooperation, EPAL employees visited KWR to discuss and use the CAVLAR model to analyse the drinking water network in Lisbon (see photo). EPAL supplied EPANET models and data from various networks within Lisbon, which were then analysed using CAVLAR during the visit. CAVLAR was used to determine the most critical valves in the networks; this information was then used to quantify the advantages of a targeted valve management programme. CAVLAR was shown to be a useful tool in network analysis and further discussions around the potential application of CAVLAR within EPAL will take place.

Other areas of research carried out by the Water Infrastructure team at KWR were also discussed such as network flushing programs (including a presentation by Peter Schaap from PWN), network sensor locations and USTORE (a shared uniform network failure registration system).