New perspectives for smart water network monitoring, partitioning and protection with innovative on-line measuring sensors.

Cities are increasingly becoming a focal point for economies and societies at large, particularly because of on-going urbanisation and the trend towards increasingly knowledge-intensive economies. Cities need to change and develop, but this change needs to be achieved in a smart way, making cities "smart cities". Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) present new opportunities for Smart WAter Networks (SWAN) as a key asset for Smart Cities. The Ctrl+SWAN (Cloud Technologies & ReaL time monitoring+Smart WAter Network) Action Group (AG) was created within the European Innovation Partnership on Water, in order to promote innovation in the water sector by advancing existing solutions. The integration of smart meters and biosensors with cloud computing and innovative software allows the development of new network management schemes. A more effective monitoring in terms of quantity and quality variables makes partitioning of large water networks possible, thus improving customer service, quality of maintenance and protection from accidental or intentional contamination. The vision of the AG consists of treating the water network not as a traditional system with devices trivially added, but as a SWAN featuring new applications that result in optimal management and protection. After providing the state of the art on the best technologies already available on the market, new perspectives for SWAN monitoring, partitioning and protection with innovative sensors are proposed. Each AG partner describes methodologies, best practices, novel devices and possible integrations among meters, biosensors, models and optimization algorithms.