ERC Water-Futures Project: quarterly meeting in Athens | May 2024

     The latest quarterly meeting of the ERC-funded “Water-Futures” project took place from May 16-17, 2024, at the Athens University of Economics and Business. The project team convened to discuss innovative strategies for advancing water infrastructure systems.

    The Principal Investigators of the project: Professor Marios Polycarpou (University of Cyprus), Professor Barbara Hammer (Bielefeld University), Professor Phoebe Koundouri (Athens University of Economics and Business) and Professor Dragan Savić  (KWR Water Research Institute/University of Exeter), brings together knowledge from different disciplines. To design the next generation of smart urban drinking water systems, this interdisciplinary research team will look at methodologies from water science, systems and control theory, economics, and decision science as well as machine learning.

    1. “Can we train strategic neural nets?”
      • Costis Daskalakis, Professor of Computer Science, MIT; Co-founder and Principal Scientist, ARCHIMEDES Unit of ATHENA Research Center
    2. “Exploiting multi-objective reinforcement learning to navigate deep uncertainties in water supply infrastructure pathways”
      • Patrick Reed, Joseph C. Ford Professor of Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Cornell University, USA
    3. “Decision-support for climate adaptation with smart water portfolios”
      • Allison Lassiter, Assistant Professor, City and Regional Planning, University of Pennsylvania, USA

    The project team showcased significant progress through various sessions, emphasizing interdisciplinary research in water science, systems and control theory, economics, decision science, and machine learning. Key presentations included:

    Session I:

    • Staged Design of Water Distribution Networks: A Reinforcement Learning Approach
    • Operation+Design > Design
    • Measuring Biofilm in Drinking Water Pipes
    • Scenario approaches in WDNs
    • Graph Neural Networks, Physical Priors, and Solving PDEs 

    Session II:

    • A New Python Toolbox & Benchmark Hub
    • Machine Learning for Water Quality State Estimation
    • Connection with PathoCERT
    • Battle of the Water Demand Forecasting

    Session III:

    • Fairness in Drinking Water Quality Distribution
    • Fairness in Water Distribution Systems from a Machine Learning Perspective
    • The Concept of Fairness in Economics

    Session IV:

    • Alternative Ways of Information Processing as a Source of Sustainable and Rational Peer Disagreement
    • Disasters, Ambiguity, and Environment
    • Establishment of the Limassol Water Board Living Lab
    • WBL – ESG/SDG Quantification and Acceleration
    • Public Perception & Valuation of Water Security Risks in Athens

    The insights and findings from this meeting will guide the future development of water infrastructure systems, aiming to make them more efficient, resilient, and equitable. Learn more about the project at https://waterfutures.eu/