8 innovations to solve water management problems, an increasingly precious resource

Drought, floods, pollution.The climate crisis is changing our relationship with water, which is increasingly less accessible.Here are 8 innovative solutions.

• Potability and climate crisis:the main problems related to water.
• There are many innovations developed around the world that can improve water resource management.
• We have chosen to talk about these 8 companies:bNovate, Majik Water, Oneka, Epic Cleantec and Kilimo, Aquaseek, Ondo, SIEve.

Drinking water plays a fundamental role in food production, human health and the conservation of the natural world.Safe access to it is an essential and universal human right which, however, is increasingly threatened by the climate crisis and the increase in global demand.This is why it is necessary to find new adaptation measures and more efficient practices in managing the limited water resources available.From this point of view, there are numerous innovative businesses and startups spread all over the world that have developed promising solutions capable of improve freshwater management and increase its availability.

Problems in water management

The right to water cannot exist if there are no hygienic-sanitary treatment structures and processes that are capable of making access safe.According to the World water assessment programme, globally approximately 80 percent of all industrial and municipal wastewater is released into the environment without any preventive treatment, with harmful effects on human health and ecosystems.This ratio is much higher in less developed countries, where sanitation facilities are often non-existent.Every year, an estimated 829,000 people die from diarrhea due to unsafe water and unsafe sanitation.

THE climate changes they are disrupting weather patterns, causing extreme phenomena that make water management unpredictable and complex.A clear example, which may seem paradoxical, is the wave of torrential rain that overwhelmed California (United States) during the first weeks of 2023.In fact, it wasn't enough to put an end to the drama drought which has been going on for several years now.Having been unable to capture the billions of liters of water flowing into the ocean, in fact, today approximately 46 percent of California still remains classified in "severe drought".

When devastating floods arrive, they often threaten to destroy wastewater management facilities and contaminate entire water supplies.In the most vulnerable countries this coincides with an increase in the spread of diseases such as cholera and typhoid.

Not just the global warming intensifies weather events, but is directly interconnected to the water supply of billions of people.Being the ice often one of the only sources of fresh water in high-altitude regions, several studies show how the melting of the Himalayan and Karakorum glaciers has catastrophic impacts on the drinking water reserves of over a billion people in Nepal, India, Pakistan and China.

8 innovative water management solutions

As global freshwater use continues to grow annually at a rate rate of 1 percent Since the 1980s, there has been a need for new ideas and technologies to make the supply system more resilient.From better management of water resources with the help ofartificial intelligence up to moisture capture systems that make water drinkable, in areas of the world where infrastructure is lacking.Here you are 8 companies and startups who have developed interesting systems in the management of water resources.

bNovate (Switzerland)

bNovate Technologies is a Swiss company based in Lausanne that develops cutting-edge technologies to rapidly monitor the microbiological quality of water.The goal is to develop reliable and easy-to-use instruments that can also work outside a laboratory.In 2017 bNovate launched BactoSense, the first fully automated bacterial analyzer, capable of detecting and quantifying the total quantity of bacteria present in water in just 20 minutes, replacing the traditional heterotrophic plate count method, the results of which are available only a few days after distribution and water consumption.With this real-time monitoring it is easier to ensure water safety.

Majik Water Technologies (Kenya)

“If you have air, you can have drinking water”, this is the motto of Majik Water Technologies, a Kenyan startup that captures humidity from the air and transforms it into drinking water for areas particularly affected by water emergencies and droughts.The technology consists of 4 steps:capture of air humidity using industrial fans, condensation in water using refrigerant gas, filtration to avoid the proliferation of any bacteria and, finally, mineralization of the water to provide all the essential nutrients.Currently the systems of Majik Water Technologies they produce over 200 thousand liters of water for over 1,900 people.

Oneka Technologies (Canada)

There desalination seawater is a technology that can mitigate the impact of countries vulnerable to prolonged droughts or ongoing water emergencies.The Canadian company Oneka Technologies has developed a process that transforms seawater into drinkable water using renewable energy produced by the motion of the waves.The device Wave-Powered Watermaker It resembles a raft that can be assembled and set up easily in most ocean conditions.It has the potential to produce up to 7,000 liters of clean water per week.

Epic Cleantec (United States of America)

Epic Cleantec is an American water technology company specializing in the reuse of water in homes.Born as a startup thanks to funds from Reinvent the Toilet Challenge of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (a program launched in 2012 to find new wastewater purification solutions), Epic Cleantec developed the system OneWater which can safely recycle up to 95 percent of a building's wastewater.

Recycled water can be reused directly on site for non-potable applications such as cooling towers, flushing toilets, urinals, irrigation or washing clothes.Even from an energy point of view, the system has the advantage of recovering energy from the heat of waste water which can be used as heating for the house.

 

Kilimo (Argentina)

Kilimo uses big data and machine learning to verify and streamline water consumption for agriculture.The company aims to help farmers optimize irrigation and then reward them by giving them the opportunity to sell their water savings to companies that want to achieve climate neutrality.“We have direct experience of water stress in our country – said Tatiana Malvasio, co-founder of Kilmo –.So we set out to create technology that could help farmers reduce their water consumption and be more efficient in their practices irrigation”.

Aquaseek (Italy)

Water everywhere and in any case, just when water resources are becoming an increasingly rare and contested commodity.This is the goal of Aquaseek, an Italian startup born from an initiative of the research group of the Polytechnic of Turin, which has developed and patented a technology capable of generating distilled water from atmospheric vapor in conditions of severe aridity.

The idea of ​​extracting water from the air is not new, but Aquaseek's technology allows it to be done with significantly lower energy consumption than technologies currently in use thanks to a thermodynamic process that can be activated even when the relative humidity in the the air is very low, like in the desert.Additionally, it has a patent on a biopolymer, developed in collaboration with Princeton University, i.e. an innovative material for absorbing and releasing water vapor which manages to further enhance its efficiency.

Ondo (Bulgaria)

Agricultural activities consume more fresh water than any other industry.To limit consumption, agritech startups are developing smarter irrigation solutions.A virtuous example is provided by the Bulgarian startup Ondo who has developed a system ofdrip irrigation.The technology includes a weather station, soil temperature and humidity sensors, as well as a module to manage more than a hundred irrigation zones simultaneously.It uses long-range sensors to control valves wirelessly, allowing plants to receive the right amount of water.With remote monitoring and automatic updates, the startup saves money on resources and increases crop yield.

SIEve (Italy)

Wastewater contains many polluting elements:from heavy metals to ammonium and anions such as sulphates, phosphates and nitrates.Currently they are removed in several stages with solutions that deplete the water of oxygen. SIEve she is a young woman innovative startup which aims to develop a filter capable of removing anionic and cationic species, drastically reducing the microbiological load and degrading some classes of drugs from waste water.The treatment is designed to be circular given that a synthesized material coming from red mud will be used, a waste generated by the industrial production of aluminum which is currently stored in open-air warehouses.SIEve, founded by brothers Yuri and Jess Serra, in just under a year of studies has developed a prototype filter capable of removing ammonium.