Infrastructures

Water Infrastructure Management (WIM)

Research Mission: The WIM-group develops tools and methods to quantify and understand the technical and economic dynamics of water infrastructures. Besides traditional centralized networks the focus is on novel water and wastewater infrastructure systems and their integration into existing structures.

Water supply and wastewater disposal are investment intensive services with large amounts of capital bound in long-lasting underground assets. The wastewater removal in Switzerland alone consists of 87'000 km of sewers and 759 large sewage treatment plants with a replacement value of altogether 100 ^. 10⁹CHF.

The water infrastructure management group focuses on the scientific basis for the sustainable management of these structures. Particularly we work on:

• the quantitative characterisation of the existing urban water infrastructures,

• the technical and economic evaluation of existing and new alternative sewerage systems, and

• the quantitative evaluation of transition scenarios in urban water management systems.
  
  

Current Projects

• Sustainable Water Infrastructure Planning [...] + [...]
  
• Valuing Adaptation to Climate Change Risks in the Water Sector [...]
  
• On-Site Treatment (OST)
• Urban Water Infrastructure Model (UWIM)
• The costs of uncertainty [...]
• Model-based monitoring and management of distributed treatment systems (DSyM) [...]
• Network Condition Simulator [...]
  

Finished Projects

• Wastewater Infrastructure Systems DecisiOn Matrix (WISDOM)
• Condition, costs and investment requirements of the Swiss wastewater treatment sector [...]
  
• Regional Infrastructure Foresight (RIF) – transition management for the sanitations sector [...]
  
• Water Supply 2025 [...]
• Wastewatermanagement 2025 [...]
• NOVA 4 - Process Engineering of source separated urine [...]
• Plastic particles instead of concrete [...]