Water is needed in everything we do in our daily lives from personal use through to production of almost all goods. Water sources are a critical infrastructure and must be maintained and monitored as any negative change in quality can cause dramatic effects. Water born contamination in drinking, source and recycled water is a serious threat to water infrastructure, consumers, and for industrial process water. Lack of early detection and warning coupled with random sampling amplifies the unpredicted danger of contamination from bacteria like E. coli and parasites like Cryptosporidium and Giardia. Contaminated water is a significant threat to industries that depend on use of water in their process and product. Aqua-Q are an innovative Swedish SME at the forefront of the industry with a core mission of early detection of microbiological contamination in drinking, source and waste water for reuse. We have received the World’s most prestigious environmental National Energy Globe Award 2017 for the outstanding innovative achievement on real-time optical monitoring & sampling solution for quality control of drinking water & water for reuse. Aqua-Q have designed and created an innovative technological solution AQUATRACK™ for use in water treatment plants and water distribution infrastructure. Our Early Warning System AQUATRACK® is a one of a kind solution. It is a real-time, online early warning system for the monitoring of water quality 24/7. The system is designed to trigger a series of events when a deviation in the baseline ‘fingerprint’ of the water source is detected. Other solutions claiming to be ‘real-time‘ are only triggered by elapsed-time – whereas AQUATRACK® is triggered by exceptional events and can respond with appropriate action within seconds, this can save valuable and critical time when a contamination is detected. Through commercialisation of AQUATRACK® with our defined early routes to market, we will achieve an ROI of 604% on our 5-yr profits.

India’s water resources are under severe stress resulting from overexploitation and pollution. The Indian government has started the Namami Gange programme in line with the sustainable development goals (SDG), including the improvement of wastewater treatment. PAVITRA GANGA links directly to these programmes and builds on existing cooperation between EU/India, supported by national governments. The objective is to fulfil SDG6 by unlocking the environmental and economic potential of municipal wastewater treatment and reuse solutions for urban and peri-urban areas in India. By focussing on three pillars we ensure maximum impact: - People: we create social awareness through a participatory monitoring approach. We target social vulnerable groups by providing treatment solutions for open drains. We create a community of practitioners by the establishment of open innovation test sites and a training & learning network. - Planet: we focus on rejuvenation of the river by removing organic pollution, heavy metals and emerging compounds that have the biggest impact on Indian streams. We provide technology innovations to upgrade existing wastewater infrastructure and to add treatment systems to open drains, resulting in improved quality of receiving rivers. - Profit: we apply the principles of the Circular Economy and exploit the economic opportunities of waste-to-energy, water reuse and resource recovery. Solutions are cost efficient and require limited investments making them particularly suited for the Indian market. In collaboration with local stakeholders and supported by industrial partners we will set-up two pilot sites at the Barapullah Drain (New Delhi) and the Jajmau plant (Kanpur). The dynamics of a business and technology platform combined with a learning network will form strong Indian water professionals, in line with Skill India, while also training EU experts in understanding Indian challenges. This will accelerate the transition to an EU-India level playing field.

Pathogens are a determining factor in emergency response due to their life-threatening nature, both for the public as well as for the safety of first responders. In many cases, pathogen contaminations are difficult to detect, and require specialized technologies, tools and procedures to handle them. Pathogens can easily spread via water, and may cause contaminations of large areas far from their origin. Waterborne pathogen contamination events can occur anywhere, and may be caused by various natural events or they can be the result of human activity, either accidental or malicious. During these emergencies, first responders may need to operate within a certain pre-defined incident area, and are likely to be exposed to contaminated water originating from various sources, such as surface water, wastewater or drinking water. This can pose a significant risk of illness, disease or even death, through skin contact, ingestion or inhalation. The overall objective of the PathoCERT project is to strengthen the coordination capability of the first responders in handling waterborne pathogen contamination events. This will increase the first responders’ capabilities, allowing the rapid and accurate detection of pathogens, improving their situational awareness, and improving their ability to control and mitigate emergency situations involving waterborne pathogens. To achieve this objective, the project will research and demonstrate Pathogen Contamination Emergency Response Technologies (PathoCERT), a collection of novel, cost-effective and easy-to-use technologies, tools and guidelines, which will be field-validated by the first responders.