7th JSWA/EWA/WEF Specialty Joint Conference: ”Resilience of Water Service"
Sendai, Japan
In order to be sustainable, water service needs to be resilient to manage acute and chronic disruptions. Natural and anthropogenic challenges include floods, earthquakes, refugee and evacuee influx, droughts, sea level rise, climate change, shrinking customer base, energy crisis, changing workforce, aging infrastructure, and pandemics.
This 7th edition of the JSWA/EWA/WEF specialty conference series explored ways to make water services more resilient.
JSWA, EWA, and WEF have identified the following four principal themes for the conference to cover the topic of water sector resilience:
- Theme 1: Resilience at all aspects
- Theme 2: Resilience of water services for refugees and evacuees
- Theme 3: Smart water strategies to strengthen resilience
- Theme 4: Lessons learned from real life disruptions
The intention was to share experience from across the world covering: real life examples of lessons learned from major events, innovative technologies and practices, and technical-scientific researches, which strengthen resilience of water service.
Our EWA President Raymond Erpelding travelled to Japan and assisted in person to the conference, he also gave a welcome speech on the first day.
As a co-organizer of the conference, we invited many speakers talking about many current topics:
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"Identification of process disruptions using hybrid sensors", Harsha Ratnaweera, Norwegian University of Life sciences, NO
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"Management tools and technologies for protection and restoration of groundwater against diffuse pollution in Denmark", Bjørn Kaare Jensen, Geological survey of Denmark and Greenland, DK
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"Investment needs in water and wastewater infrastructure and inevitability of horizontal and vertical solidarity in fulfilling SDG 6” Kovacs Karoly, Hungarian Water Association, HU
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"Comparative risk assessment for potentially contaminated sites (soil and groundwater): A regional methodology In Italy", Fabio Tatàno, University of Urbino “Carlo Bo”, Italy, IT
- "From wastewater treatment plant to power plant! From vision to reality!", Torsten Frehman, Emschergenossenscharft/Lippeverband, DE
- "The future of digital flood warning systems and environmental protection –Smart high-resolution solutions for small scale catchments", Andre Niemann, University of Duisburg-Essen, DE
Some of the speakers were in Sendai and other submitted a video of their presentation.