IWA Efficient 2019

WIRC PhD student, Olivia Bailey recently attended the 10th IWA Conference on Efficient Urban Water Management (13th-16th January 2019) in Manila, Philippenes. Olivia delivered a talk to conference delegates entitled ‘Developing a stochastic sewer input model to support sewer design under water conservation measures’. This presented a sewer flow model that she has developed and validated through her PhD work within the WISE CDT Programme. This work has been primarily supervised by Prof. Jan Hofman and Dr. Tom Arnot of WIRC and external/industry supervison has been provided by Dr. Mirjam Blokker (KWR, NL), Prof. Zoran Kapelan (TU Delft, NL) and Dr. Jan Vreeberg (Evides Water Company, NL).

The conference showcased a broad collection of topics including smart technology solutions for reducing peaks in water demand, novel insights to reducing non-revenue water and an account of how Cape Town’s Day Zero was avoided through accelerated drought response. The conference comes to the city of Manila at a time where government focus is largely shifting towards environmental protection, improving sanitation and ensuring safe, affordable water access for all its inhabitants. From the grand skyscrapers that grow from the district of Makati it is hard to believe that 80% of wastewater in Manila goes untreated, 1.9 million litres per day being discharged to the Manila Bay. Manila’s goal is to ensure 100% sewer connection for it’s residents between 2025-2036 and let’s hope this is achievable. The closing remarks of the conference came from the Fillippino Young Water Professionals who offered a possitive outlook on the future of water in the Philippenes.

On her return from the conference, Olivia has now begun a 3-month research visit to TU Delft, the Netherlands. Here she will work to develop and validate the water quality element of her stochastic sewer model. She will work with both TU Delft and Amsterdam water company, WaterNet within the New Urban Water Systems (NUWTS) project that aims to create a sustainable urban water system for the future.