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Distribution networks

Projects

Sustainability
Climate change and resilience
Digital Twin II

In this project a so-called ‘digital twin’ of a drinking water distribution network of a Dutch city is being made, with the aim of determining the impact of corona measures – lockdown and increased working-from-home – and…

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Enabling technologies
New materials and technologies
Midas: Multiple Data Sources

Drinking water utilities and Water Authorities increasingly wish to support their decisions concerning the maintenance and rehabilitation of their pipes with detailed condition models. Recent applications of condition models however make it increasingly clear that the successful…

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Enabling technologies
Innovative water treatment technologies
Identifying contaminations with numerical source-determination

The Dutch drinking water utilities abide by the legal provisions for monitoring the microbial quality of drinking water in the distribution network. The monitoring programme for this regular…

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Enabling technologies
New materials and technologies
The effect of water quality on leaching in pipes containing cement

In order to limit the leaching of asbestos cement and the cement contained in pipes, the Dutch Drinking Water Act includes the Saturation Index (SI), a measure of…

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Enabling technologies
Hydroinformatics
Condition forecast for individual mains

The risk of pipe failure is one of the factors taken into account by drinking water utilities when they decide whether or not to replace water mains. They assess this risk on…

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Sustainability
Climate change and resilience
Agent-based models for water demand – an exploration

The design of a future-proof drinking water distribution network requires a vision of the evolution of the demand for drinking water. There is a need for a method…

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Enabling technologies
Hydroinformatics
Smart Water Networks – 2

This project within the Joint Research Programme of KWR and the water utilities concerns the question of how a smart network – a combination of a variety of sensors with the right algorithms – can in practice…

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Enabling technologies
Hydroinformatics
Development of DiVerDi software for GeoWater

Drinking water utilities strive to achieve maximum quality in the provision of drinking water to customers. This aspiration relates not only to the treatment of drinking water, but also to its distribution.…

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Enabling technologies
Hydroinformatics
CALLISTO

Water losses in drinking water distribution systems are a globally recognised problem. Drinking water utilities have a number of reasons to address this challenge. In the Netherlands image considerations are of particular importance while, elsewhere in the…

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Enabling technologies
Hydroinformatics
Optimal transition to network blueprints phase II

Within this project KWR is developing a method to automatically determine the transition from current structures to network blueprints, based on the Gondwana numerical optimisation, which takes into account the hydraulic and…

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Sustainability
Climate change and resilience
Measures to combat the unwanted heating of water in the pipe network

Legally the water temperature at the tap may not exceed 25°C. The temperature of the water network changes because of the weather and aboveground and underground heat sources. In…

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Enabling technologies
Future-proof networks
Application future failure frequency prediction method

The prediction of failure frequencies is important in determining pipe replacement volumes and replacement prioritisation. The predictions are used to prioritise pipe replacements, and are a factor in…

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Enabling technologies
Hydroinformatics
Resilience of distribution systems under crisis scenarios

This exploratory research project is producing an inventory of the possible physical and cyber threats (crisis scenarios) that present a potential danger to the proper functioning of drinking…

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Health
Safe innovation and the water sector
Organising the Veghel experimental plot

In this project, we are creating a scientific basis for the organisation of water company Brabant Water’s future ‘infrastructural experimental plot’ in Veghel for the specific area of expertise that relates to…

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Enabling technologies
Future-proof networks
PVC degradation model in Comsima

In the Netherlands PVC is the pipe material that is most used: more than half of the drinking water distribution network is made of PVC pipes. Being able to assess and predict the condition of the pipes…

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Enabling technologies
Hydroinformatics
Real-time sensor measurements for a better water-quality policy

The current, hydraulic models are infrequently applied to water-quality issues in the distribution network; moreover, they are poorly, or only to a limited degree, equipped for this task.…

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Sustainability
Climate change and resilience
Heat transfer to drinking water mains

The warming of the soil around a drinking water main can make the temperature of the water in the main rise above 25 °C, which means that the water no longer satisfies…

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Enabling technologies
Future-proof networks
SmartWater4Europe

European water utilities face many problems related to their 3,5 million km’s of distribution networks. Large parts of water distribution networks have to be rehabilitated requiring investments of € 20 billion/year. Prioritization and optimization of investments is…

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Enabling technologies
Future-proof networks
From mains data to mains knowledge

Decision-making about which mains to replace, and when, is one of the most important issues for asset management regarding the distribution network. With decision-support software, water companies can select which mains to…

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Enabling technologies
Future-proof networks
Knowledge-based rules for PVC mains

As a result of the large-scale use of PVC by the Dutch drinking water sector since the 1950s, 52% of the current drinking water distribution network is made of this pipe material.…

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Experts

Bram Hillebrand MSc
Scientific researcher Project manager
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Bram Hillebrand MSc

Scientific researcher Project manager

Bram Hillebrand is a scientific researcher in the Water Infrastructure team. After earning a Master’s in geophysics, he worked for four years on a PhD at Utrecht University in the...

030-6069590

06-53248293

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Andreas Moerman MSc
Scientific researcher Project manager
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Andreas Moerman MSc

Scientific researcher Project manager

Andreas Moerman a project manager and researcher in the Energy and Circular Systems team. Within the heat transition effort, Andreas works on developments in the areas of Aquathermal Energy/TED (Thermal...

030-6069605

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Peter van Thienen PhD
Senior scientific researcher
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Peter van Thienen PhD

Senior scientific researcher

Peter van Thienen is a senior researcher. Based on his background as a quantitative natural scientist, Peter works with a number of colleagues on the drinking water distribution network, from...

030-6069602

06-54293706

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Ralph Beuken MSc
Scientific researcher
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Ralph Beuken MSc

Scientific researcher

Ralph Beuken works as a researcher on the Water Infrastructure team. His expertise is in asset management of underground infrastructure, with a focus on knowledge building of pipe conditions, setting...

030-6069758

06-25032599

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News

News

Start of Midas project aimed at making optimal use of the multiple data sources for pipe-network condition models

29 March 2021 — KWR is collaborating with HDM Pipelines, Spatial Insight, Acquaint B.V., Waterschapsbedrijf Limburg, the Zuiderzeeland Water Authority and Brabant…

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News

Operational Code for Drinking Water Valve Management

26 February 2021 — The new Operational Code for Drinking Water Valve Management (PCD 15) was recently completed. Drawn up as a…

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Blog

The hunt for leaks is on!

25 January 2021 — Leakage has been a major concern for water utilities around the world for a long time. Progressing urbanization…

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News

Data-driven, sustainable drinking water provision in Mexico

28 May 2019 — On 20 May, the water utility SAPAZA, the municipality of Zapotlán El Grande and MGB Victoria from Mexico,…

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Column

As Hong Kong grows, so does demand for better water infrastructure

23 April 2019 — From 8-10 April I visited Hong Kong together with Idsart Dijkstra, Water Systems and Technology manager, and Prof.…

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News

KWR demonstrates value added of water knowledge for practice at trade fair

04 April 2019 — KWR presented the value added of water knowledge in water practice at Aqua Nederland Vakbeurs 2019. The event,…

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News

Workshop makes numerical optimisation more accessible for water companies

27 June 2018 — More and more attention is being directed at the optimisation of drinking water distribution systems. But the complexity…

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News

Drinking water companies improve USTORE through uniform quality code failure registration

19 December 2017 — Last week the joint USTORE operational code was incorporated into the Platform Bedrijfsvoering (Management Platform). This is a…

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News

Uniform Failure Registration Database Workshop

24 October 2017 — Good failure registration is very important in underpinning a water-main replacement policy. Indeed, failure registration is one of…

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News

Smart networks for a sustainable water provision

22 September 2017 — The third Grand Assembly of the four-year EU SmartWater4Europe (SW4EU) project was held in Burgos, Spain. Over the…

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News

New fit-for-purpose decision support tool for pipeline inspection technologies

27 February 2017 — Watershare is proud to announce the launch of a knowledge-based and decision-support toolbox for water and wastewater network…

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News

Collaboration between water companies and universities important at international CCWI conference

09 November 2016 — The Computing and Control for the Water Industry (CCWI) conference attracted 180 representatives from numerous countries to share…

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News

New IWA/KWR book describes stress-test for future-robustness of distribution networks

13 October 2016 — KWR collaborates with IWA Publishing to make relevant knowledge about drinking water available worldwide. Claudia Agudelo-Vera and Mirjam…

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News

INTEREST: rules of thumb for costs and returns of sensor networks in drinking water distribution

10 October 2016 — Sensor networks allow us to monitor drinking water more comprehensively and detect contaminants more effectively. However, we need…

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News

Japanese delegation visits KWR for workshop on smart water networks

06 October 2016 — On Wednesday, 5 October, a delegation from Japan visited KWR to attend the workshop on “Smart Metering and…

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News

Jan Vreeburg appointed Honorary Professor at the University of Exeter

18 August 2016 — Dr. Ir. Jan Vreeburg, principal scientist at KWR and associate professor of Urban Environmental Technology and Management at Wageningen…

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Article

KWR researcher Mirjam Blokker is visiting professor at the University of Sheffield

17 March 2015 — Since 1 March 2015, researcher Mirjam Blokker has been visiting professor in the Faculty of Civil and Structural…

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