Important DESSIN milestones achieved
Two important DESSIN milestones (MS) have been completed at the DESSIN demo sites in Athens and Hoffselva.
MS13: Integrated system architecture design has been completed for the Athens case study on November 2014 by NTUA and has served to the purchase of equipment and instruments of the pilot site. See thumbnail picture to the left.
DESSIN poster presentation at TRUST/IWA cities of the future conference
The Cities of the Future – Transitions to the Urban Water Services of Tomorrow (TRUST) conference in Mülheim, Germany at the end of April provided an opportunity to present and discuss leading-edge developments in the area of urban water services with an international audience of water utility personnel, researchers, engineers, technology providers, city planners, consultants, regulators and policy makers. It focused on the techniques, technologies and management approaches aiming at enabling and supporting the transition towards more sustainable urban water futures, but also zoom-in on the socio-economic requirements and aspects of this transition. It also gave the opportunity to network and plan future collaborations. Click to see more
Baptism of DESSIN cross-flow lamella settler container „Claire II“
Within DESSIN, the technique of cross-flow lamella settling will be demonstrated at the Emscher demo site in Germany and, in 2016, at Hoffselva in Norway. The German project partner UFT has recently completed a mobile test container, which has been baptized “Claire II” on the 1st of April on the UFT premises at Bad Mergentheim. It will be installed at the Emscher demo site in Castrop-Rauxel within the next couple of weeks.
Public meeting at Hoffselva demo site
The installation of the high-rate filtration unit at Hoffselva demo site took place in February 2015, and Oslo VAV arranged a public meeting to inform the local community and neighbours about the project and upcoming activities. Prior to the meeting, Oslo VAV announced the meeting with posters and letters to the closest neighbours, including information about the DESSIN project in general. One representative from Oslo VAV (site owner), one representative form Inrigo Water (technology provider) and two representatives from SINTEF (research partner) attended the meeting to answer possible questions. The information given by the posters and letters is considered highly important in order to inform the local community and neighbours about the project, what we are doing and why. Also giving the local community an opportunity to meet and discuss with involved partners is valuable. Click to see more
Networking for DESSIN
As part of DESSIN’s “Route to market“ activities, the DESSIN solutions and their benefits for ecosystem services (ESS) are promoted in European networks and events and ESS lobbying is supported. In line with these activities, the DESSIN partner adelphi participated in the Wasser Berlin International trade fair on March 24th in Germany, which is a trade fair and congress for water management and a platform in Germany that reflects the entire economic cycle of the water industry and also in the WssTP ERRIN RIS3 workshop on March 25th in Brussels.
Annual DESSIN Magazine available
The first annual DESSIN magazine is now available for download here.
Focus of the issue mainly lies on introducing the DESSIN project. There is a description of the demo sites, the work on the ESS framework is presented, a timeline of the project can be found and the DESSIN partners as well as some of the people working for DESSIN are introduced. There also is an interview with Ignacio Martin, leader of the ESE Action Group of the Water EIP, who gives a view from outside the project and a piece about DESSIN proposals to water scarcity problems and improvement of water quality. Enjoy the read!
DESSIN inside-out market analysis guidance
A guidance document for market analysis for ESS software and solution packages was finalized as part of the initial work of the DESSIN work area 42, the route to market. It takes an inside-out perspective, focusing on technology-driven SMEs that provide innovative ESS-enhancing products or services in the water sector. Its methodological starting point is the companies and characteristics of their products/services and innovation capacities (inside) in view of surrounding market dynamics and market demand (outside). The inside-out approach complements the already finalized two outside-in business environment reports that focus on the bigger picture and market conditions specific to the DESSIN context. Click to read more
Work area meeting in Barcelona
About twenty DESSIN researchers and scientists held a meeting on the 4th and 5th of March at the Cetaqua headquarters in Barcelona. The objective of the meeting was the internal coordination and evaluation of the status of progress with WA1 activities, as December 2015 will be a key date for the delivery of most of WA1’s results. Specifically, the ESS evaluation framework was presented and drafts of some upcoming deliverables were shared and discussed.
A first successful year at the Llobregat demo site
After one year in DESSIN the leader and coordinator of the Llobregat demo site, Marta Hernández from Cetaqua, summarizes the first twelve months of life of DESSIN at the Barcelona location.
How would you evaluate the first year of DESSIN at the Llobregat demo site?
The first year has been very active in the demonstration site. Regarding the preparative works, we have completed the observation network of piezometers, which will allow not only evaluating the impact of the pre-potable water in the system, but also gives us data of the natural behavior of the system in pumping conditions. Two observation wells have been installed, with a total thickness of 50 meters. During drilling works, sediments have been collected to obtain the complete geological profile at local scale, which has provided us with very valuable information. Click to read more
“The aim is to develop an efficient system to store and recover freshwater in a brackish/saline groundwater environment”
Interview partner Marcel Paalman is a geochemist engineer and received his PhD for a study on the behavior of pollutants in sediments under various estuarine conditions at the University of Utrecht. Afterwards, he worked for many years at various public organizations on water policy subjects such as the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive. Since 2009 he works for KWR Watercycle Research Institute in the Netherlands and is developing new tools and technics related to the water cycle and is now demo site leader of Westland within DESSIN.