Towards augmented intelligence and agentic AI, never forgetting the all-important human factor

This week Dragan Savic, KWR’s former CEO and current Global Advisor Digital Sciences, received the 2025 Julian Hinds Award for “his leadership in the development and application of hydroinformatics tools, particularly in the modeling, optimisation, and management of water resources, water distribution and sewage systems, resulting in substantial cost savings for utilities worldwide.” Since 1974, the Environmental and Water Resources Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has annually given out this award to recognise the author of a paper or an individual who made meritorious contributions to the field of water resources development. Of course, KWR congratulates Dragan Savic wholeheartedly on this well-earned reward, which was named after the designer of the Hoover Dam. The prize offers a nice occasion to ask Savic for his insights into the past and the future of digital water and water management.

Convincing people to use and develop AI tools

Savic’s involvement with AI and using computers started very early on in his career, late in the 1980s: “When I started my Ph.D., I also had to take and pass some exams outside my civil engineering department. I chose computer science, and by chance, I decided on an AI course. In those days, AI was something different, quite rudimentary if you compare it to what we do now. Over the years, I have applied and developed various AI tools in the water sector, and my main struggle has always been to convince people that we needed to develop more of these AI tools and hydroinformatics, and use them in practice.”

Augmented intelligence and dedicated agents

Now, of course, AI is booming. People are applying large language models for all kinds of things. Savic: “Sure, you can let AI write e-mails or simple code, but I think that is still only scratching the surface of what we can accomplish with AI. There is a much deeper kind of ability we can use; we could, for instance, automate quite a lot of thinking and analysis. I certainly don’t want AI to replace people, but I want us to move towards combining human and artificial intelligence, what you might call augmented intelligence. I think agentic AI is the next huge development: AI trained to do a specific data job, for instance, dedicated agents to run our simulation models the way an expert would do – human experts simply cannot be available all the time. Or to help us unlock KWR’s knowledge base further. I think that’s where the future will be for us, combining human and artificial intelligence to see how we can attain a more sustainable and better use of water, better water infrastructure and so on. In a way, water and AI are similar to me: both should be publicly available resources, but unfortunately, in this world, we find ourselves needing to deal with privatisation and commercialisation.”

The human factor

Whether it stems from human or artificial intelligence or a combination of both, technology cannot answer society’s problems by itself. Savic: “We need to involve social sciences, because the human factor plays a strong role in implementing solutions that work. That was something I became more and more aware of along the way. Education in civil and other engineering fields has long focused mainly on technology, not the social and human side of technological solutions. During my Ph.D., there was an experiment by one of my professors who brought people from the humanities and engineering together to argue pro and con certain technologies, such as in vitro fertilisation. In those discussions, moral implications came in, and that struck me and stayed on my mind, and became even stronger over time. Especially here at KWR, the impact of the human factor on what we want to accomplish in the water sector became clearer to me. KWR offers unique opportunities for technology experts to mix and discuss with experts in other fields, like social sciences or environmental economy. In universities, all these experts reside in their separate institutes and buildings. Here at KWR, all disciplines share the same workspace, we work next to each other, there is much more opportunity to discuss all sides of a problem and learn from each other.”

Questions of fairness and morality

The resulting discussions take all experts beyond the limits of their disciplines, says Savic. “So we talk about fairness in design and planning, or adaptive planning for the future, control, engineering, all of it together. Social scientists learn to deal with the physical and practical limitations and consequences of working with water; engineers like me sometimes struggle to understand all the social implications of what we do. But that’s why I have these colleagues who keep me on my toes, help me see moral implications in technological projects, and make me aware that when planning the design for a water system, fair access for everybody should be an important factor. How do we ensure that all parts of a city have the same level of service and quality? These are questions Dutch water companies already face; they know they will likely run out of water during droughts. In 2018, decisions had to be made about who would get water and who would have to go without. With strong economic consequences, the water companies had to cut off irrigation water for farmers. Water companies need to know how to influence, persuade or help their customers use less water when it is scarce. Therefore, the human factor can and should not be ignored, because technology alone can not bring us all the answers.”

Building bridges between science and practice from KWR’s unique position

Savic has always had a great interest in the practical application of science. Becoming CEO of KWR in 2018 was one way to focus more on bridging science to practice, creating an effective connection between scientists and experts in the field that leads to solutions that can successfully be applied in practice. “The closeness to practical applications attracted me to KWR in the first place. Being a university professor is very nice; it gives you great freedom to explore things, but the link to practice is often difficult to achieve. I have been trying all my career to achieve that, but there are perceived and real barriers. The time frame, for instance, research takes years, and the water industry is not always patient; they need solutions now, so often they turn to consultants instead of universities.”
He goes on: “On the other hand, once university research is completed and applying new technologies and innovations becomes a possibility, researchers often have already moved on to their next subject. So when the industry wishes to implement new technology, the scientists are no longer available to work with it. Bridging the science to practice can be a daunting task. To my mind, KWR has always kept a position somewhere between consultants and universities, which helps KWR experts build stronger bridges between science and practice. I felt that by working at KWR, I could share more knowledge with society.”

Water Futures

In 2024, Savic stepped back as KWR’s CEO after six years. “Being the CEO of a self-funded research organisation took much time and energy. I wanted to spend more time working in the science of water during this last part of my career; I still have five Ph.D. students in different stages, with whom I work. And it is a great joy to work on the Water Futures project. This 6-year project started in 2021 and is enabled by ERC Synergy Grant funding within the EU Horizon Europe programme (Water Futures). Water Futures tackles the problem of working under deep uncertainty on resilient and sustainable critical infrastructure for urban water infrastructure, such as drinking water and wastewater systems. This means smart planning for a wide range of possible scenarios, including extreme climate scenarios, technological changes, and socio-economic disruptions. In a multidisciplinary approach, four research groups from the Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB, Greece), Bielefeld University (BU, Germany), KIOS Research Innovation Centre of Excellence (KIOS, Cyprus) and KWR Wate Research Institute (KWR, the Netherlands) work together and combine expertise from environmental economics, machine learning, control engineering and water systems analysis fields to untangle the complex socio-technical challenges of planning flexibly and fair for the future. And I am proud to say that Dutch water companies are interested and involved in this Water Futures research.”

Sharing KWR with a wider world

However, more time for scientific work certainly wasn’t the only reason Savic desired a different role after six years as CEO. “One of my frustrations is that the world doesn’t know enough about how good KWR is. There is a lot of accumulated knowledge here, 50 years of research, reports, and impact on the industry. I want to share with a wider world what we do at KWR and how we do it. So I’m travelling a lot, meeting and collaborating with other people, and if you wish, spreading the word and bringing the name and approach of KWR to a wider audience.”

Award ceremony

Savic’s travels, unfortunately, kept him from personally receiving the Julian Hinds Award, named after the chief engineer for the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. He could not attend the ASCE meeting in Anchorage on the 21st of May because he already had prior obligations speaking in China (at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ “A Youth-led Vanguard International Symposium” and the 7th Conference on Urban Water Environment and Ecology Development and the Three Gorges Symposium on Environmental Technology, 18-21 May, in Suzhou Wujiang). But he planned on speaking remotely, and it is our pleasure to share his speech with you, including an enlightening explanation of his journey through AI and water planning and management.