Water Supply and Sanitation Technology Platform WSSTP

The Water Supply and Sanitation Technology Platform is an initiative of the European Commission within the European Environmental Technology Action Plan -ETAP. The aim of WSSTP is to bring together all European stakeholders in water (drinking water, waste water, water in industry, water in agriculture and water for nature) to define the vision for water in Europe in a short (2010), medium (2020) and long term (2030) perspective based on the principle of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM).
Based on this vision, the WSSTP and its expert working groups have defined a Strategic Research Agenda - SRA. This research agenda has been submitted to the European Commission to be used as input for the key actions in the Seventh Framework Programme of DG Research.

The SRA addresses a number of major water challenges in Europe recognising six Pilot Themes gathered in a Pilot Programme. The Pilot Programme is defined as an organizational structure that embraces the whole conceptualisation, feasibility, (including generic and enabling research as well as technology development), prototype development, piloting, demonstration and deployment of cases; a structure set up to carry out precisely targeted and prioritized research that is defined by and tested in a number of real-life applications.

The ultimate objective of the Pilot Programme is to develop innovative contributions to address major European water problems through establishing multi-facetted, multi-sectoral and highly competitive consortia.

Within the Pilot Programme, the following 6 Pilot Themes have been defined:

• Pilot 1: Mitigation of water stress in coastal zones
• Pilot 2: Sustainable water management inside and around large urban areas
• Pilot 3: Sustainable water management for agriculture
• Pilot 4: Sustainable water management for industry
• Pilot 5: Reclamation of degraded water zones (surface water and groundwater)
• Pilot 6: Proactive and corrective management of extreme hydro-climatic events

Within the above Pilot Themes a number of various projects have been defined all over Europe, in the form of the so-called Implementation Cases.

What are the Implementation Cases?

The implementation cases of a pilot must address all major water issues in a region, such as a river basin. Each pilot will have a particular focus, and all cases within the pilot have the same focus e.g.: water problems in and around a big city. For example, as a way of optimization of water usage, re-use of city effluent for irrigation could be considered. Similarly a pilot on industrial water use, will consider the needs of other water users in the vicinity of the plant such as another industry or agriculture applications and so review options for water reuse.
The principal characteristics of an implementation case are:

1. Systemic integrated solutions for large multiple issues, within the framework of IWRM.
2. Real-life situations, such that technologies and methods to be developed can be based on realistic situations and realistic data
3. Geographically transferable, the technology and methods developed for the particular case will be - transferable to similar situations elsewhere
4. Addresses urgent social/economic problems with potential for system optimization, i.e. problems that can benefit from optimization across the whole water system, rather than just optimizing for a single user.

Each Implementation Case its own Consortium consisting of various stakeholders involved (also universities and research institutes, and socio-economic expert) and is willing to share its knowledge and experience in the pre-competitive phase with Consortia working on other cases within the same Pilot.
At a higher level, the information and knowledge resources collected from Implementation Cases are shared within a Pilot they refer to and between Pilots if appropriate. They include the so called Generic RTD and Enabling Technologies

What is a Pilot Generic RTD?

The research supporting all implementation cases within a particular pilot has been labeled as pilot generic RTD. It covers multiple issues. It is defined, targeted and prioritized by the needs of the implementation cases as identified by the stakeholders Possible examples are: multiparameter/ multi-user monitoring, data handling, data analysis and information presentation systems, scenario builders, risk management systems and decision support systems. The main difference from previous research plans is that these systems are truly integrated and serve multiple users over the whole spectrum of water issues in the particular pilot. In principle this research is generic for a specific pilot. But will be made available to other pilots as appropriate.

What are Enabling Technologies?

There are many important research issues which do not integrate over several water issues, such as a better treatment process. In this case the needs are defined, targeted and prioritized by the implementation cases in a particular pilot. The technologies are building blocks necessary to realize effective water treatment and management, they have an enabling function. They could also serve other pilots.

Interested to report your Implementation Case?

Member States of the EU and other interested European parties are asked to define additional Implementation Cases using the provided questionnaires (see below) . Each case should indicate the most appropriate Pilot Theme. Projects under the WSSTP umbrella are more likely to get funding and will benefit from the shared knowledge and system solutions developed within the WSSTP. Following the SRA the WSSTP has worked an implementation plan defining how to carry out the research presented in SRA . It will be followed by a related Deployment Strategy concerning financing the research and implementation.

PILOT 1: Mitigation of water stress in coastal zones
PILOT 2: Sustainable water management inside and around large urban areas
PILOT 3: Sustainable water management for agriculture
PILOT 4: Sustainable water management for industry
PILOT 5: Reclamation of degraded water zones (surface water and groundwater)
PILOT 6: Proactive and corrective management of extreme hydro-climatic events