Innovative concepts for water and wastewater

 Demographic change, what now?

Population shrinkage or rapid growth compromise the financial viability and proper functioning of centralised water and wastewater infrastructures. Semi-centralised and decentralised flexible technologies provide possible solution approaches. In the Project "Future-compliant Water Infrastructure Systems for Regions undergoing Change”, inter 3 is analysing how a favourable innovation climate for their implementation can be created. The project is being funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

Objective: Activating potential for innovation

Water supply and disposal technologies hold much scope for delivering financially and technologically future-proof infrastructure systems and for conserving environmental resources. The aim of the project is to develop concrete approaches for activating this potential. Included in this are opportunities for synergy with other areas of infrastructure in terms of economically and ecologically efficient application of resources.

Approach: Analysis of the innovation arena with regard to the Federal Government‘s steering options

The first step is for the research network, comprising the IWAR Institute of the Technical University of Darmstadt and inter 3, to develop application possibilities for semi-centralised and decentralised supply and disposal concepts in regions in Germany undergoing change. These are for example small treatment plants for rural areas, or novel circulation systems with mass flow separation and recovery of the various wastewater constituents. Coupled with this is an analysis of the innovation arena into which these concepts are currently integrated, i.e. an analysis of the main actors, the functional relationships and different basic requirements. This will be visualised with the aid of the constellation analysis in order to identify driving and inhibiting factors for the application of decentralised technologies. In conclusion, strategic starting points for activating this potential are worked out, in particular with regard to the Federal Government’s steering options.