Just a few years back, phrases like ‘Digital Water’ or ‘Digital Transformation’ began making their way into conversations within the water industry. In the last decade, terms like ‘Digital Water’ and ‘Digital Transformation’ have gained traction in the water industry. Prior to that, ‘Smart Water’ was the buzzword, and before that, it was ‘Water 4.0’ and ‘Industry 4.0’. It’s worth noting that currently, new terms are still emerging, with references to Industry 5.0 and 6.0. However, the label is less important than the practical implications. So, what does ‘Digital Water’ actually mean for the water industry today? 

It encompasses a wide array of elements, ranging from cutting-edge IoT sensors to digital renderings of pumping stations and treatment facilities, and the present-day marvel: the Digital Twin. Even the term ‘Digital Twin’ can hold different meanings for different people – for some, it represents a model, while for others, it stands as an all-encompassing source of insight into system performance. In my own experience, the most effective illustration that facilitated an understanding of Digital Water was presented by the Smart Water Networks (SWAN) Forum back in 2011. 

The SWAN Layers, fashioned after the earlier Purdue Model, provide a structured framework for comprehending Digital Water by dividing it into distinct layers: physical assets (Layer 1), instrumentation (Layer 2), communications (Layer 3), visualisation (Layer 4), and ultimately, data analysis and conversion into actionable insights (Layer 5). Two layers were notably absent from this model: i2O Water. 

In the past 12 years, many others have added or contributed to the SWAN layers. However, the system already sufficiently summarises the horizontal layers of a data and information management system. 

The weakness of the SWAN layers lies in its inherent technological orientation. In the realm of Digital Water, it’s imperative to acknowledge that there are other crucial perspectives to take into account, such as those related to business systems and human resources. While the SWAN Layers represented a pivotal paradigm shift in the industry and continue to do so, we must also factor in the business drivers. To achieve this, we must assess their requirements by scrutinising how the industry has evolved since the introduction of digital water solutions. 

To put this into context, the area of the water industry where we have probably seen the most development, is leakage or non-revenue water reduction. Technologies have been developed and integrated into water company systems to discover leaks. We have seen an increase in technologies such as smart sensors in pipes, as well as satellites that use pattern recognition to highlight areas with an increased likelihood of water leaking into the ground. The industry is starting to see the development of digital solutions in the wastewater network as well, using machine learning and monitoring within the sewer environment to find and prevent blockages. This is indeed important as we know the environment is at a greater risk of pollution through sewer overflows because of sewer misuse. 

When delving into the origins of digital water, much like any technological approach in any industry, it’s crucial to grasp its practical application. Personally, when I contemplate what I seek from Digital Water, I always return to the fundamentals. The global water industry generates vast volumes of data daily, yet only a fraction of it finds meaningful utilisation. To extract value from this data, the initial step is understanding the information requirements – from the CEO of the company to the frontline operator – and then aligning them with the data sources, changing the data strategy to suit. However, this marks just the inaugural phase. Once this foundational work is accomplished, the subsequent stride involves translating the information requirements into tangible business drivers. 

This is what Digital Water means to me. Let us know what Digital Water means to you. The Digital Water Summit on 14-16 November 2023 in Bilbao, Spain, is the ideal arena to continue this discussion. I invite you to join me there by registering today: www.digitalwatersummit.org or join the conversation online using #DigitalWaterSummit 

In today’s changing world, the influence of digital technologies can be seen in nearly every sector. The water utility sector is no exception. But how is the digital transformation impacting the water sector and what are the drivers behind it? What are its key-enabling technologies?  

These are some of the questions addressed in a recent open-access study published in npj Clean Water. The study, led by a team of researchers from TU Berlin-ECDF and international collaborators from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Politecnico di Milano, KWR Water Research Institute, and Griffith University, sheds light on the current state of digital transformation in water utilities through a global perspective. 

Climate change and urbanisation have put water security in the spotlight. Water utilities worldwide are facing a double-edged sword: while they are directly impacted by climate change, their own operations contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. Digital technologies have shown promising results in making utilities more sustainable and their operations more efficient through the urban water cycle. 

Sixty-four utilities from 28 countries replied to our online Smart Water Survey, and their answers reveal a clear trend: digital transformation has already taken root in the water utility sector, regardless of the unique challenges faced by each region and different paces of technology adoption. Big and small, public and private, recent and more experienced utilities have all started embracing the wave of digitalisation, reshaping the way they operate and manage resources. Another major contribution of our study is the identification of the drivers and key technologies enabling the digital transformation of water utilities. Learning from utilities that are leading the digital transformation journey enables other utilities to make informed decisions about their digital strategy, allowing them to prioritise the adoption of specific technologies based on their degree of penetration, effectiveness, and best practices. 

Geographical distribution of water utilities that responded to the Smart Water Survey. Colored circles represent the location of the 64 water utilities that provided complete responses to the survey (after data cleaning). Each circle is placed in the geographical center of a country, with the color bar indicating the number of respondents per country. In total, respondent utilities were from 28 countries worldwide.

Key Drivers and Enabling Technologies 

Our study wraps up with three main insights: 

1. Water supply and distribution systems often act as a catalyst for further technology adoption in the entire urban water cycle.  
2. Prospective economic benefits are still the primary driving force behind the digitalisation efforts of water utilities. This means that beyond the obvious advantages of sustainability and streamlined operations, utilities are motivated by the potential economic gains digitalisation can offer, followed by government regulation and hydroclimatic factors.  
3. Different subdivisions of the urban water cycle are adopting digital technologies at varying speeds, resulting in a diverse landscape of technology adoption.  

Penetration of digital technologies in different water utility subdivisions. The technology availability score (TAS) is computed for individual technologies and refers to their application to individual subdivisions in the entire water utility sector: a WS; b WD; c WW; d CD; and e IT. TAS values of 0 indicate low penetration and availability of a given technology, and values of 3 indicate high penetration and availability.

For a more in-depth analysis of these main findings, be sure to check out the full paper! 

Towards a digital water future 

Our survey also highlights a need for continued research and monitoring. While certain drivers of digital transformation were identified, we couldn’t establish a direct link between these drivers and the actual progress of digitalisation in practice. Other questions remain open, besides expanding the coverage of interviewed utilities and disentangling local nuances that can affect a utility’s digitalisation progress.  What is the role of individual leadership in driving the digital transformation? How can policy facilitate impact-oriented technology development? What is the role of consumers in a utility’s decision-making processes? Answering these questions requires future monitoring of technology uptake in the water utility sector. 

As we move towards a digital future, water utilities must stay vigilant, embracing innovation and exploring the untapped potential of technology in pursuit of water security and climate resilience. The journey towards a digitally empowered water utility sector has just begun, and it promises to reshape the way we manage our most precious resource.  

We invite you to read our full study and join us on the digital water journey by registering for the IWA Digital Water Summit in Bilbao on 14-16 November 2023. Registration is now open. 

Article citation 

Adapted from: Daniel, I., Ajami, N.K., Castelletti, A. et al. A survey of water utilities’ digital transformation: drivers, impacts, and enabling technologies. npj Clean Water 6, 51 (2023). doi.org/10.1038/s41545-023-00265-7  under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Water utilities are at the forefront of safeguarding public health, safety, and the environment, and play a critical role in building community resilience. Many water utilities globally have been targeted by cyberattacks, increasing concerns about sector’s vulnerability to cyberattacks. As such, industry experts are calling for more measures and new cybersecurity rules to protect critical water infrastructure and services. With a strong and sustainable cybersecurity programme in place, water utilities can protect sensitive data, defend against cyber threats, and maintain uninterrupted operations even in the face of a cyberattack.  

Cyberattacks are a reality for any organisation operating in today’s interconnected digital world. By approaching cybersecurity through the lens of community resilience, water utilities can take a proactive approach to risk management, implementing preventive measures and ensuring rapid restoration of services in the event of a cyberattack. 

Types of Cyberattacks on Water Systems 

A cyberattack is an attempt to compromise the function of an industrial control system (ICS) or enterprise systems or an attempt to track the online movements of individuals without their permission. Attacks of this type may be undetectable to the water utility or to the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system administrator but can lead to a total disruption of a water utility’s network. 

The attacks may include: 

•  Denial of Service: Flooding a network or web server with false requests to crash or make the resource unavailable to its intended users 
•  Ransomware Attacks: The attacker locks/encrypts the ICS systems with malware and demands a ransom for it to be released
•  Spyware: Monitors user activity 
•  Trojan Horse: Malicious file or programme that disguises itself as a genuine programme file
•  Virus: Attaches to existing programmes, then replicates and spreads from one computer to another 
•  Worm: Malicious file that replicates itself and spreads to other computers 
•  Sniffer: Monitors information travelling over a network 
•  Key Loggers: Records and transmits keystrokes and transmits to the originator 
•  Phishing: Fake websites or e-mails that look genuine and fetch confidential personal data

How To Mitigate Cyber Risk 

It is important to take immediate and decisive action to mitigate cyber risk. It is a serious challenge, but with prompt action and a well-coordinated response, it is possible to mitigate the risk and minimise the impact. Here’s a step-by-step process to deal with the situation: 

• Identify the extent and nature of the problem as well as assess the potential impact on operations, customers and other stakeholders. 

• Prioritise the most critical systems and operations to ensure that they are protected and restored as soon as possible. 
• Communicate the situation to all relevant stakeholders, including customers, employees and local authorities. This helps to manage expectations and build trust. 
• Consult cybersecurity experts to resolve issues and implement measures to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.  

Mitigating cyber risk requires a comprehensive and multi-layered approach that covers all aspects of a water utility’s operations. A robust cybersecurity programme should include measures to protect against cyber threats, detect and respond to incidents, and recover from any potential impact. 

It is essential to have strong password policies and firewalls, but that’s just one aspect of a comprehensive cybersecurity programme. Other measures may include employee training, secure passwords, regular software updates, data backup and recovery plans, network segmentation, and risk assessments of third-party partners and vendors. Sensitive information, critical infrastructure and personal or customer data require protection.  

By taking a strategic approach based on a comprehensive risk framework, water utilities can reduce the risk of cyber incidents and maintain the resiliency of their services for the benefit of the community. 

The first-ever Digital Water Summit organised by the IWA will soon be taking place in Bilbao from 29 November – 2 December 2022. The Summit is a B2B event with key players from the water digitalisation sector. Chema Nebot, Business Development Director at Idrica, an international water technology company specialising in smart solutions and services for the industry, comments on the importance and challenges of digital sustainability in the sector.

Q: What is digital sustainability and why is it important?

Chema Nebot – Digital sustainability is a concept that is gaining increasing importance in the water sector. Nowadays, water utilities often struggle to integrate and exploit the data gathered from sensors and other digital management tools provided by different vendors. Our GoAigua platform can integrate data from all technologies and vendors to ensure water utilities can extract its value. Digital sustainability means that the data collected now and in the future is always accessible. It also means that the entire company speaks the same language, and has the same data for building indicators and making decisions.

The key to digital sustainability is forward thinking: figuring out how data can be used in the future. It’s not just about focusing on what we are managing right now, but also about the information we will need in the future to provide safe drinking water. It’s about combining all the data and indicators from different departments into a single data model in the utility.

Q: What steps can water utilities take to improve digitalisation?

CN: I believe that digitalisation within water utilities can be improved and harnessed through seamless data integration. Organisations need to speak the same language. The key is to combine data, emphasise the importance of IT departments within the utility and lever its extensive knowledge and know-how. Utilities are seeing the value of smart water solutions, and are implementing digital transformation plans.

Q: Do you have any specific projects and examples currently underway which could help utilities navigate the world of data and digitalisation?

CN: Yes, definitely. Our smart water platform is the result of the digital transformation process at the water utility Global Omnium, which started over a decade ago.

This platform is being used successfully by utilities around the world. For instance, the Spanish city of Valencia is saving 4M m3 of water per year thanks to technology. The software also optimises energy consumption, a topic which is particularly relevant at the moment due to skyrocketing energy prices in Europe. In other regions, like North America, we have reduced storm sewer overflows by over 70% in the city of Houston.

Overall, such case studies show there is a huge need for smart water solutions. Digital sustainability can be a means to use all this data for decision-making today and tomorrow.

Throughout the pandemic, the water sector has played its regular vital role in ensuring essential services keep running. It has also helped through the emerging area of wastewater surveillance, with the pandemic providing an enormous opportunity for use of Wastewater-based Epidemiology (WBE).

Even before COVID-19, the water industry was used to addressing enteric pathogens including viruses in water supply and sanitation. For this reason, there was a high level of confidence from early on that SARS-CoV-2 did not present a major threat for drinking water supplies. As the pandemic gathered pace, the water science community responded at speed to provide knowledge to help fill in the gaps on the new pathogen, SARS-CoV-2. This does have its own unique characteristics, and the community worked to fill gaps in areas such as risks of faecal-oral transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the survival of the virus in sewage, and potential transmission by aerosols.

Progress was supported by a willingness to cooperate and share data and insights. This willingness was illustrated well by the way the IWA COVID-19 Task Force brought together leading experts in a webinar to share their experiences of using a range of methods to identify and track SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern (VoC) in wastewater in their countries.

This willingness is also very evident in an initiative in which Michigan State University, KWR Water Research Institute, the University of California Merced, Venthic Technologies, and PATH are collaborating to develop the Wastewater SARS Public Health Environmental Response, or W-SPHERE. This is a newly launched global centre for data and for public health use cases on SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater. Its mission is to advance environmental surveillance of sewage, informing local and global efforts for monitoring and supporting public health measures to combat COVID-19. Sewage provides a window to view trends in community infection, earlier and more objectively and efficiently than other surveillance systems and has the potential to assist in public health decisions. Initiatives such as this can benefit society greatly and are also a leading example of useful knowledge sharing across countries. Read more in The Source.

Today, the emergence of the omicron variant has shown how COVID-19 still poses a major challenge to societies hoping to bounce back after long months of lockdowns and restrictions. The highly infectious omicron variant, first detected in Southern Africa in November 2021, quickly spread throughout the globe in a matter of weeks, leading countries such as France to report as many as 300,000 new cases in a single day. The US Center for Disease Prevention and Control estimates that the omicron variant went from making 8% of all new cases for the week ending December 11 to approximately 95.4% for the week of December 26 – January 1, showing a very rapid and exponential increase.

Given this speed, it is now more essential than ever for the water sector to be able to share experiences and data across countries, also taking into account that methodologies and data interpretation may need to be adjusted. Experiences will be shared in the webinar taking place on 12 January about the omicron variant (which will also be available on-demand at a later date), and also at the forthcoming LET conference.

The science is expanding dramatically at the interface of new technology, public health and wastewater collection and management.  This means that we have been able to monitor the influx of Delta and now the Omicron variants into the population and this opens the door for understanding much more about community health than ever before.

New research in these areas will be presented at the LET Conference in Reno, United States on 27 March – 2 April 2022. There is a dedicated track on Wastewater-Based Epidemiology, offering a great opportunity to expand your knowledge on this emerging and ever more prominent area of scientific research. I hope to see as many of you there and share experiences and new insights about SARS-CoV-2 variants in wastewater and WBE.

Early bird registrations are open until 31 January 2022, so grab your tickets now!

Managing ageing infrastructure and large networks of water systems are big challenges facing water companies all over the world. In 2021, a study led by a team at United Nations University identified ageing water infrastructure as an emerging global risk. Most of the engineering solutions for water management still in use today, such as dams and sewer networks, were built between the 1930s and the 1970s. These are now posing risks and challenges to infrastructure managers striving to expand services and embrace the digital revolution.

Berlin’s sewer is 9,700 km long, enough to cover a journey from Berlin to Bogotá! Managing such a vast network of ageing infrastructure is becoming increasingly difficult due to an insufficient rehabilitation budget. The Berlin Centre of Competence for Water (KWB) is rising to the challenge and researching a promising smart solution to improve asset management: deterioration models. Key research activities on modelling are being developed to address both the short and long-term operation of sewer networks and offer a better, cost effective solution for asset management.

Deterioration models can be applied to forecast the evolution of the condition of the entire sewer network or of specific groups of sewers with similar characteristics. The models need to be as accurate as possible so that utilities and municipalities can trust their predictions and use them to plan efficient inspection, rehabilitation and investment strategies.

In the past decade, KWB has analysed meticulously the prediction accuracy, the operational benefits and the limitations of deterioration models in different countries of the world, such as Germany, France, Colombia and the United States. Working closely with utilities, this work also addressed key issues such as the improvement of condition assessment from CCTV inspections and the consideration of uncertainties in the decision-making process.

How do deterioration models work?

Inspection data from the sewers is the basis for modelling. In a KWB case study from Berlin, all kinds of data  about the condition of sewers were used: for example, the material of a pipe, its diameter, the age, its conditions etc. In addition, we learned that open data is particularly important in this context: by using publicly available urban data such as soil type, groundwater level or the presence of trees, the accuracy of the predictions can be significantly improved. The results from KWB are very encouraging for the industry. The models can simulate the condition of the entire network with excellent accuracy. It is also interesting to note that machine learning algorithms perform better than statistical models in predicting the condition of individual sewers.

Based on these results, researchers at KWB and Berliner Wasserbetriebe have developed a new prediction tool for the management of Berlin´s infrastructure called SEMAplus. The aim of this project is to investigate the suitability of sewer deterioration models in predicting sewer conditions, and to identify the relevant specifications of sewer deterioration models and input data needed for successful utilisation.

In the first project phase, data from more than 100,000 sewer pipes in Berlin was used to test various statistical and AI-based approaches to modelling for the prediction of sewer deterioration. Using this new tool, the current condition of the network can be determined more precisely, giving an accurate picture of what to expect in the future. Thanks to this, the sewer utility can now carry out predictive maintenance and efficiently renew the infrastructure in a timely manner – keeping investments and expenses as low as possible while maintaining the condition of the infrastructure.

Tools using AI, modelling and statistics like SEMAplus can be applied worldwide, even in cities where there is less available data from sewer utilities. Recent applications of these tools in Sofia, Bulgaria and Bogotá, Colombia, have shown that models can be beneficial even when only a small portion of the network has been inspected. Due to its efficiency, wide scope and potential, SEMAplus was awarded the 2019 Innovation Prize by the Association of Municipal Utilities (VKU), in the category of outstanding innovations by municipal utilities.

The project still has a long way to go – currently the KWB is building a SEMAplus Community with operators and municipalities which further develops and optimises the tools together. A key priority on the horizon to improve asset management across the whole water cycle is the development of predictive maintenance solutions to optimize the rehabilitation of water wells, among other new digital solutions for water management. To stay up to date about the latest innovations in urban water infrastructure and asset management, visit IWA’s Digital Transformation Hub and digital-water.city, a project involving more than 24 partners in Europe, including KWB, who are investigating new digital solutions in the field.

The global water industry today is facing multiple challenges, including leakages, contamination and managing limited resources. These challenges are not limited to developing countries. For instance, Melbourne, Australia, recently suffered contamination of its water supply following a storm.

Two particular challenges are the need to reduce water consumption, while also decreasing wastewater pollution, and its environmental impact, all while relying on limited funding. So how does the industry achieve this?

In my opinion, the first step to address this problem is not technology-based, but people-based. The water industry has long been known for being ‘data rich’ but ‘information poor’ because informational needs have not been fully defined. The way to define these is through stakeholder engagement, to discover what type of information is needed and what data will satisfy stakeholder needs. Once these are defined, a gap analysis can be utilised to consider the role of instrumentation.

Instrumentation, as a data source, is one of the fundamental building blocks of a future ‘digital transformed water industry’. This will use data and convert it into information, situational awareness, business and operational insight to both serve customers and protect the environment.

Many projects have failed due to poor instrumentation, which results in either a lack of data or unusable data due to poor quality. If the industry is to achieve digital transformation, we have to get the basics right.

By installing instrumentation in the appropriate way and using it for the right applications, we can ensure that it is operated and maintained properly to allow for suitable data and information quality. This guarantees that the data and insights that ultimately come from the instrumentation are based on correct fundamentals, and that both tactical and strategic views are not compromised.

The general belief is that the digital transformation of the water industry will lead to an increase in instrumentation and maintenance burden. However, this may not be the case. It is conceivable that proper analysis could identify some instrumentation as being superfluous and suitable for being decommissioned.

I am passionate about this agenda and am an active participant in the IWA Digital Water Steering Committee. I believe that by working with people through the people/process/technology triangle, we can increase the value of the data and instrumentation. Using data visualisation and analytics will transform the water sector by actively facilitating informed decision-making. Ultimately, this will lead to tangible benefits for people, in terms of the quality and security of their water supply, as well as improved environmental outcomes.

Additional information:

Oliver Grievson is the author of the latest IWA white paper: The role of Instrumentation in Digital Transformation.

You can download the document here.

To learn more about the importance of instrumentation in digital transformation, watch the video Importance of Data in the Digital Transformation or read Oliver’s blog! Please join the conversation on Digital Water on IWA Connect.

Science and engineering help us understand the world and change it for the better. For example, advancements in drinking water, from germ theory and handwashing to filtration and chlorine disinfection, have substantially reduced deaths and disease, and improved public health. The results are self-evident for many of us at our kitchen taps.

However, despite growing public trust in scientists, there also appears to be more scientific misinformation and even attacks on legitimate expertise. Informed criticisms, no matter their origin, are valuable (think peer review, although they can be of poor quality), but attacks on scientific matters without evidence usually prove counterproductive. Here, I share my experiences with the latter kind, specifically after publishing research in an IWA journal.

I do this for two reasons: a) throw light on the common yet mostly unspoken phenomena of baseless attacks on science, and b) open a conversation to help others, especially young professionals and untenured faculty, who may have suffered similar attacks, or are self-censoring their high risk or potentially unpopular scientific findings for fear of retaliation or public shaming by Twitter mobs.

With collaborators Drs. Marc Edwards and Min Tang, I recently published two peer-reviewed articles quantifying waterborne lead exposure in Flint, Michigan during the city’s water crisis using wastewater-based epidemiology. Specifically, we used datasets of lead in sewage sludge (or, biosolids), drinking water and children’s blood to estimate water lead trends over the past decade.

Two major findings from this work, first reported in the IWA journal Water Research in May 2019, were: a) lead in water and in children’s blood in Flint peaked only for a few months immediately after the city switched to the Flint River water in April 2014 and suspended corrosion control treatment but dropped thereafter despite staying worrisome, and b) a lead exposure event, much worse than seen during the entire crisis, occurred in mid-2011.

Having helped uncover the Flint Water Crisis with residents as part of the Virginia Tech research team in August 2015, this was a valuable addition to our and society’s knowledge base. To allow everyone, especially Flint residents, full access to the science, we made these papers open access. Two months ago, I shared these findings with a broader audience in a scientific opinion article with Dr. Edwards writing “lead levels in Flint were not as bad as first feared” in numerous speculations made in 2015 that lead levels got progressively worse over the crisis’ 18 months.

With many pursuing wastewater-based epidemiology to track the spread of the novel coronavirus, our article stimulated expected excitement and engagement with water/wastewater experts. However, it also started a small storm.

A journalist shared their anger on Twitter, and emphasized, while they were “not qualified” to assess the scientific merits of our work, my sharing of the findings was not sensitive. Repeated emails politely asking which specific lines from our article were “insensitive” have gone unanswered. An activist expressed how reporting this data was a “betrayal to the long suffering residents of Flint.” A lawyer made an understandable feces quip about wastewater data.

However, it was responses from academics that gave me pause. A mechanical engineering professor told a newspaper that our findings, whatever they may be because she had actually not read our lead papers, did not “eliminate the fact that there was high exposure.” A geography professor opined because we did not live in Flint or drink the water, we should keep quiet. By that logic, most research done since the beginning of time should not have been conducted or shared, including our original testing of Flint’s water that exposed the crisis. A social science professor pushed the theory that the timing of my article, which was completed before but came out weeks after news leaked of a historic $600 million settlement for Flint children, was suspect.

What if my article had released before the news had broken? The professor also equated our supporting Flint pediatricians’ call to not label all Flint children “lead poisoned” based on actual water and blood lead data, to attempts made to rewrite the gruesome killing of Mr. George Floyd. I sent a polite email asking for clarifications, but never heard back. The tweetstorm got significant traction with many US professors working in the water space, who shared these tweets with other academics without fact-checking. How are such actions different from the spreading of fake news on Facebook?

I highlight these examples to show how easily scientific work can be mischaracterized online. The lack of fact-checking and clickbait nature of social media allow falsehoods and outrage to fly in our “misinformation age.” The apparent rush to embrace subjectivity and share what one feels about a study while disregarding the thousands of data points on which that work stands is worrying. While I personally found many of these comments amusing, the narcissism and lack of due diligence on display by academics who, for example, comment without reading studies or conflate recommending accurate labels based on data to a horrific murder, strikes me as dangerous, and possibly not that uncommon. Why then should the public trust academia?

In an era of populism, hyperpolarization, and even reckless world leaders, scientific experts are still highly trusted. The general public looks to academics for knowledge that is, above all, evidence-based. Science is a matter of seeking the truth, not consensus on Twitter or through open letters. We should not fall in love with our pet scientific theories and political beliefs. In fact, we should actively try to disprove them. The answer to evidence is more compelling evidence, not conspiratorially thinking out loud on Twitter.

We all have behavioral and knowledge blind spots. Academics should do better. I am neither arguing against healthy scientific debate, nor pushing for suppressing speech, only that we exercise care when sharing information online. The social media platforms are rage machines. Let’s not knowingly make things worse.

In recent times, tremendous pressure has been exerted on freshwater resources due to natural and anthropogenic activities globally. Several major coastal cities are seriously facing the water crisis, in recent years, Cape Town in South Africa and Chennai in India are a prime example of this. Therefore, alternative sources of freshwaters are urgently needed to fulfill the need for potable water in the future. Several regions (e.g. Australia, the USA, South America, New Zealand, Indonesia, Japan, Israel) of the world have offshore fresh groundwater (OFG) reserves.

In recent years, researchers across the globe have shown their keen interest in it because OFG systems can be potential sources of potable water that can be used for drinking and domestic purposes. Hence, quantitative mapping of OFG resources could be significant for the major coastal cities of different countries to supply freshwater sustainably in future.

Based on this, a study has been carried out by a group of researchers on the “3D characterisation and quantification of an offshore freshened groundwater system in the Canterbury Bight, New Zealand”( see Fig. 1) as part of the MARCAN Project. This project is funded by the European Research Council and led by Prof. Aaron Micallef from the University of Malta, Malta and GEOMAR, Germany.

The objectives of MARCAN are to:

• define the characteristics and dynamics of topographically-driven meteoric groundwater systems in passive continental margins, and
• demonstrate that topographically-driven meteoric groundwater is an important geomorphic agent in passive continental margins.

The OFG system near Canterbury, New Zealand, consists of one main and two smaller low salinity groundwater bodies. The main body extends up to 60 km from the coast and a seawater depth of 110 m. The outcome of the modelling results suggests that the majority of the OFG was emplaced via topographically driven flow during sea level lowstands in the last 300 ka in the area. Moreover, the geochemically analysed pore water from borehole U1353 indicate freshwater mixing in the depth range of 59.7–75 mbsf. These observations are significant contributions to the understanding of OFG systems across the globe.

This was the first time an OFG has been investigated in 3D. In the case of New Zealand, the OFG is found offshore of the driest part of the country, which needs lots of water for irrigation purposes. Similar studies have been carried out offshore New Jersey and Israel, and the main challenge has always been the ambiguity of the geophysical data and the measurement of the geological parameters that can reduce such ambiguity.

Please have look at a video summary of this study on YouTube  and find more information on OFG here: MARCAN Project, Facebook, LinkedIn

Fig. 1 Study area. Three-dimensional digital elevation model of the Canterbury Basin (Source: https://data/linz.govt.nz). The location of the rivers, onshore gravel aquifer, onshore well Ealing 1, CSEM and multichannel seismic reflection lines, and boreholes U1353 and U1354, is shown. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-14770-7