Safe drinking water and sanitation are recognized as basic human rights by the United Nations. Pandemic events such as COVID-19 outbreak show us how important it is for human health, wellbeing, economy and the environment to provide drinking water to citizens in a safe, fair and reliable way, and to have efficient sanitation systems. This project will study data from COVID-19 pandemic to propose new measures, treatments and tools that will make the urban water cycle more resilient to future threatens and challenges. A multidisciplinary team of 15 researchers from 2 universities and 1 research centre will work together to i) increase water digitalisation as a tool to make drinking water systems more robust, ii) demonstrate new circular economy models and technologies in cities based on the potential water-energy-food-nexus and iii) study and model consumption patterns in households taking into account socioeconomic parameters. Results will be published in scientific journals and delivered in a joint final report for different audiences.

Principal Investigator: Dr Manel Poch