One-year post-graduate course curriculum

The central objective of the European project TRUST is to deliver co-produced knowledge to support Transitions to the Urban Water Services of Tomorrow, enabling communities to achieve a sustainable, low-carbon water future without compromising service quality. TRUST delivered research driven innovations in governance, modelling concepts, technologies, decision support tools, and novel approaches to integrated water, energy, and infrastructure asset management. These innovations have been demonstrated by the implementation of the most promising interventions in the urban water system of the nine different participating city pilot regions. TRUST outcomes are incorporated into planning guidelines and decision support tools, and through dissemination of the knowledge generated to a broad stakeholder community including water utilities, water authorities, technology and service providers, and academics. Among others, the results from the TRUST project can be presented through university courses; i.e. the subject of this deliverable. Given the importance of post-graduate education, a curriculum for a one-year postgraduate course on sustainable management of urban water cycle services (UWCS) is prepared. The aim of the curriculum is to provide a reference that may be adapted or adopted by any European university or network of universities. Although the curriculum and courses presented are hypothetical, for the descriptions actual course contents of several European universities are used. TRUST deliverables are presented as course reading.Schalkwijk, B.; Frijns, J.; Saegrov, S.; Alegre, H. (2015). One-year post-graduate course curriculum: Sustainable Management of Urban Water Cycle Services. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/5363

Urban water system metabolism assessment using WaterMet2 model

12th International Conference on Computing and Control for the Water Industry, CCWI2013, 2013-09-06, 2013-09-09, Perugia, ItalyThis paper presents a new "WaterMet2" model for integrated modelling of an urban water system (UWS). The model is able to quantify the principal water flows and other main fluxes in the UWS. The UWS in WaterMet2 is characterised using four different spatial scales (indoor area, local area, subcatchment and system area) and a daily temporal resolution. The main subsystems in WaterMet2 include water supply, water demand, wastewater and cyclic water recovery. The WaterMet2 is demonstrated here through modelling of the urban water system of Oslo city in Norway. Given a fast population growth, WaterMet2 analyses a range of alternative intervention strategies including 'business as usual', addition of new water resources, increased rehabilitation rates and water demand schemes to improve the performance of the Oslo UWS. The resulting five intervention strategies were compared with respect to some major UWS performance profiles quantified by the WaterMet2 model and expert's opinions. The results demonstrate how an integrated modelling approach can assist planners in defining a better intervention strategy in the future.This work was carried out as part of the ‘TRansition to Urban water Services of Tomorrow’ (TRUST) project. The authors wish to acknowledge the European Commission for funding TRUST project in the 7th Framework Programme under Grant Agreement No. 265122

Dissecting the loci underlying maturation timing in Atlantic salmon using haplotype and multi-SNP based association methods

Characterizing the role of different mutational effect sizes in the evolution of fitness-related traits has been a major goal in evolutionary biology for a century. Such characterization in a diversity of systems, both model and non-model, will help to understand the genetic processes underlying fitness variation. However, well-characterized genetic architectures of such traits in wild populations remain uncommon. In this study, we used haplotype-based and multi-SNP Bayesian association methods with sequencing data for 313 individuals from wild populations to test the mutational composition of known candidate regions for sea age at maturation in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). We detected an association at five loci out of 116 candidates previously identified in an aquaculture strain with maturation timing in wild Atlantic salmon. We found that at four of these five loci, variation explained by the locus was predominantly driven by a single SNP suggesting the genetic architecture of this trait includes multiple loci with simple, non-clustered alleles and a locus with potentially more complex alleles. This highlights the diversity of genetic architectures that can exist for fitness-related traits. Furthermore, this study provides a useful multi-SNP framework for future work using sequencing data to characterize genetic variation underlying phenotypes in wild populations.Peer reviewe

Plasticity in response to feed availability - does feeding regime influence the relative growth performance of domesticated, wild and hybrid Atlantic salmon Salmo salar parr?

Growth of farmed, wild and F1 hybrid Atlantic salmon parr, Salmo salar, was investigated under three contrasting feeding regimes in order to understand how varying levels of food availability affects relative growth. Treatments consisted of standard hatchery feeding (ad libitum), access to feed for 4h every day, and access to feed for 24h on three alternate days weekly. Mortality was low in all treatments, and food availability had no effect on survival of all groups. The offspring of farmed S. salar significantly outgrew the wild S. salar, while hybrids displayed intermediate growth. Furthermore, the relative growth differences between the farmed and wild S. salar did not change across feeding treatments, indicating a similar plasticity in response to feed availability. Although undertaken in a hatchery setting, these results suggest that food availability may not be the sole driver behind the observed reduced growth differences found between farmed and wild fishes under natural conditions

The structural variation landscape in 492 Atlantic salmon genomes

Structural variants (SVs) are a major source of genetic and phenotypic variation, but remain challenging to accurately type and are hence poorly characterized in most species. We present an approach for reliable SV discovery in non-model species using whole genome sequencing and report 15,483 high-confidence SVs in 492 Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) sampled from a broad phylogeographic distribution. These SVs recover population genetic structure with high resolution, include an active DNA transposon, widely affect functional features, and overlap more duplicated genes retained from an ancestral salmonid autotetraploidization event than expected. Changes in SV allele frequency between wild and farmed fish indicate polygenic selection on behavioural traits during domestication, targeting brain-expressed synaptic networks linked to neurological disorders in humans. This study offers novel insights into the role of SVs in genome evolution and the genetic architecture of domestication traits, along with resources supporting reliable SV discovery in non-model species.Peer reviewe

Intervention concepts for energy saving, recovery and generation from the urban water system

There are numerous options for energy measures in the water sector ranging from water conservation and process efficiency improvements to new technologies and redesigning water systems. Next to energy efficiency improvements, there is a need for new concepts in which water is viewed as a carrier of energy. Municipal wastewater is a potential source of chemical energy, i.e. organic carbon that can be recovered as biogas in sludge digestion. Even more so, domestic (waste)water is a source of thermal energy. And in areas with altitude differences, installing micro-hydro technologies in water distribution systems can convert energy from the pressure and flow into electricity. This report presents intervention concepts for energy saving, recovery and generation from the urban water system. Summarised, the main outcomes of research undertaken at 9 case studies are: i) Algarve and Alcoy water supply system: by performing an energy audit, the most energy efficient operating scheme can be determined. ii) Oslo and Amsterdam water cycle: the thermal energy recovery potential from wastewater is large, and it is in particular feasible if coupled to aquifer thermal energy storage systems. iii) Schiphol and Athens wastewater treatment: the energy generation at wastewater treatment plants through biogas can be enhanced by co-digestion and thermophilic digestion. iv) Lanhirano, Athens and Algare water supply system: in a water distribution system, water and energy can be saved by integrating pressure and energy management., i.e. by installing micro-turbines.Frijns, J.; Monteiro, A.; De Graaff, M.; Carriço, N.; Covas, D.; Cabrera Marcet, E.; Lausund, E.... (2014). Intervention concepts for energy saving, recovery and generation from the urban water system. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/4662

Group maintenance scheduling: a case study for a pipeline network

This paper presents a group maintenance scheduling case study for a water distributed network. This water pipeline network presents the challenge of maintaining aging pipelines with the associated increases in annual maintenance costs. The case study focuses on developing an effective maintenance plan for the water utility. Current replacement planning is difficult as it needs to balance the replacement needs under limited budgets. A Maintenance Grouping Optimization (MGO) model based on a modified genetic algorithm was utilized to develop an optimum group maintenance schedule over a 20-year cycle. The adjacent geographical distribution of pipelines was used as a grouping criterion to control the searching space of the MGO model through a Judgment Matrix. Based on the optimum group maintenance schedule, the total cost was effectively reduced compared with the schedules without grouping maintenance jobs. This optimum result can be used as a guidance to optimize the current maintenance plan for the water utility

CARE_W : Computer Aided Rehabilitation of Water Networks, EU Fifth Framework Program, (contratto EVK1-CT-2000-00053), 2001-2004

Many cities and districts worldwide approaches a situation with increasing deficit of water needed for urban consumption (households, industry). Expensive projects are planned to bring water supply over long distances or create costly treatment processes. At the same time water losses from distribution network can be up to 50%. Still the reduction of leakage is often not straight-forward, and ageing systems with increasing failure rate increase the stress on the network. The challenges for urban water distribution have a huge financial dimension. Although they do what they can, many cities and countries do not have the economic capability cope with their problems. They are therefore chasing international funds such as EU structural funds, World Bank etc. This situation is a challenge regarding the fulfilment of the UN Millennium goals for water. Also in the highest developed countries in financial terms the network ageing is considered as a major challenge into 21 century, and sustainable levels of renovation and corresponding decision criteria is under discussion. Also in these countries the willingness to invest in networks is probably less than the actual need. A minimum ambition should be not to expel the financial burden of water network management to our children and grandchildren generations, and it is the responsibility of researchers to demonstrate consequences of to-days practises. The contribution of research community can be very important to cope with the problems, by demonstrating the best ways to approach the situation, new technologies and optimization techniques. These approaches can optimise the necessary expenditure of resources to improve the urban water situation for the less favorized regions. This is the background for the extensive joint efforts that has been carried out by 16 research centres and 20 cities Europe-wide and also including Australia, namely the CARE-W project. Intermediate results have been presented in several international conferences, including the IWA World Congresses in Paris, Hamburg, Melbourne and Marrakech. CARE-W is now finished as EU research projects, but it continues with application and implementation world-wide. The main goals for CARE-W have been to support cities in achieving the right urban water rehabilitation project using the right technology at the right time. The research team had as its vision to support a move from re-active approach to the networks to a pro-active approach. This means leaving the strategy of repairing damages to avoid the damages by preventive rehabilitation, in other words to move from crisis handling to risk based network management. Avoiding damages means saving money. On the other side and there will be a risk of wrong selection of projects and waste of investment capital. To avoid this, better knowledge about the network performance is needed. This can be obtained by a systematic analysis of the relevant factors of network performance based on a systematic collection and processing of urban network information. The information may need to be more extensive than practise in cities, but the main idea is to make the data collection and processing more intelligent. The network manager of CARE-W acts as the operating system and connect tools to GIS platform and databases. It is also managing the data flow (input and results) between the tools. The tools of the system are summarized as follows: Objective 1: Status, trends, investments, customer related performance: PI tool on investment and condition for drinking water systems; Objective 2: Failure forecasting: Tool based on failure history (breaks, leaks) analyzed by stochastic method (Proportional Hazard model); Objective 3: Hydraulic performance: Hydraulic network and hydraulic reliability model (consequences when pipe stop working); Objective 4: Socio-economic impact (impact to customer) : Integrated in ranking methodology; Objective 5:Long-term investment strategies: Based on lif..