SMART WATER GRID INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2013
12-14 November 2013, Incheon, Republic of Korea
SMART MANAGEMENT OF THE WATER URBAN CYCLE
Ignacio Casals del Busto1, Antonio Sánchez Zaplana1
1 Aguas
Municipalizadas de Alicante, Spain, Research and Development Dept.
* C/Alona, nº31, Alicante, Spain
Email: Ignacio.casals@aguasdealicante.es/antonio.sanchez@aguasdealicante.es
Keywords: Real-Time Monitoring; Decision Support; Flood Prevention; Public information;
Demand prediction; Water reuse; Asset Management; AMR
Aguas Municipalizadas de Alicante, AMAEM, is the
company in charge of managing the urban water cycle in
Alicante and several neighbor towns: San Vicente, Sant
Joan, Petrer, Monforte and El Campello. More specifically,
AMAEM provides the water distribution service in all of
them, and is responsible for the sewage service in
Alicante, Sant Joan and Monforte. The origin of Aguas de
Alicante dates back to 1898, when the water carried by
the Alicante Canal finally arrived in the city solving its
permanent scarcity of resources.
AMAEM is a public-private-partnership shared by the
town council (50%) and the AGBAR Group (50%) since
1953. AMAEM is an example of successful PPP for the
World Bank1.
The length of the distribution network is
2.247 Km with 171 Km. of trunk mains,
approximately 40 million cubic meters of
water are distributed, with nearby 90% of
network efficiency.
AMAEM has a system of 34 storage tanks,
with a total capacity of more than 332.632
m3, also act as flow and pressure
regulators.
In addition to the water distribution
network, AMAEM manages the sewer
network of the municipalities of Alicante,
San Juan and Monforte, comprising 739 Km of mains, that include stormwater channels with a
section of 10x5 m.
The city of Alicante faces complex conditions like scarce and irregular rain (semiarid region), no
local water resources and seasonal consumption peak due to tourism. AMAEM is responsible
and efficient management as water resources preservation with environmental care and a
strong involvement of citizens.
SMART WATER GRID INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2013
12-14 November 2013, Incheon, Republic of Korea
AMAEM develops and makes intensive use of available ICT solutions to run the services and to
optimize its assets with partners such as Aqualogy3 or Ondeo Systems in an environment where
traditional strategies prevail. This stake in added value technologies is reflected in the
involvement of the Company in the @qua consortium. We shall briefly describe some of the
projects developed and implemented by AMAEM for the management of the Urban Water Cycle,
classified in four lines: Public Administration Smart Synergies, Smart Citizen Information,
Smart Asset Management and Sustainability and Circular Economy.
Public Administration Smart Synergies
iCAP: Online System for Water Quality Control
in extensive Regional Network, accessible by
Tablets and Smartphones.
SIPAID: Smart Flood Early Response
Management: Integrated System for flood
prevention, decision making speeding-up for
all the actors concern accessible by Tablets and
Smartphones too.
Smart Citizen Information:
Spot Billing: Onsite instant billing to guarantee
the client access to the complete invoice:
alternate solution to both traditional and Internet
invoicing. This service will be available in isolated
areas, as well as in scattered populations and in
outlying districts, where difficulties exist in billing
provision. There may also be problems with the
lack of household postal delivery services in such
areas.
Augmented Reality Mobile Information of City Works Progress: Multiplatform integrated solution to provide updated information on
planned and ongoing urban works to citizens, in order to minimize
impact. The objectives are: Reduce troubles to the citizens due to works,
Give as much useful information as possible, Keep information
constantly updated, Simplify update process, Feed every output channel
through one single GIS tool
SMART WATER GRID INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2013
12-14 November 2013, Incheon, Republic of Korea
Cowama5/iBeach4/Smart Panels: Integrated and Real Time Monitoring
System to Protect the Quality of Bathing Waters and public
communication through multiple channels, like Smart Electronic Panels
in the beaches with weather and quality information in real-time.
iBeach is the app to go to the beach: swell, wind, sea temperature,
webcams, and the only one with flag color and jellyfish presence. With
iBeach you can check 3-day, meteorological and maritime forecasts
with a 3-hourly time step. iBeach is an App for Android and
iPhone/iPad.
Smart Asset Management:
Universal AMR System (>40.000 active meters in 2013; to be fully operative in 2015): Remote
Meter Reading solving the problems associated to manual Reading, providing added
information and services to the consumers.
Metresa2-Metrawa: Decision Support
System for optimal network renewal,
able
to
prioritize
asset
replacement/rehabilitation and deliver
the best technical solutions, including
analysis of future investment costs and
allowing you to optimize these
investments. Its modules are structural
study,
hydraulic
analysis,
risk
management, analysis of optimal time
of renewal and economic study.
Idrolewell: comprehensive water well
monitoring system, able to perform a
complete, real time, continuous
diagnosis of the groundwater
catchment and pumps. Idrolewell is a
reliable, economical, robust, accurate
and innovative that allows knowing
the level of a well with the necessary
precision to even perform a complete
analysis of the functioning pump and
aquifer overall.
SMART WATER GRID INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2013
12-14 November 2013, Incheon, Republic of Korea
Smart infrastructures for flood and
waste water discharge prevention,
such as the automated stormwater
retention tank “Eng. Jose Manuel
Obrero” (60.000 m3) or the Floodable
Park “La Marjal”. Smart Control is
performed by rain forecast simulations
from weather radar, filling level and
real-time anti-flood collectors, allowing
early management optimizing reservoir
operation at full capacity.
Ice Pigging6: Ice Pigging technology is
based on harnessing the complex
properties and unparalleled benefits of
ice slurries. Ice Pigging provides a new
and innovative pipe line cleaning
technology for the water industry, as
alternative to conventional pipelinepigging or pipeline cleaning techniques.
Ice Pigging is now widely adopted as
the most cost-effective method of pipe
cleaning in many countries around the
world.
Sustainability and Circular Economy:
Water Reuse for Urban Uses7: Water recycling to
guarantee hydric sustainability and improve the
urban environment for a better quality of life.
Automated remote control for irrigation optimization
and water quality control are two main
characteristics of our management.

Enernova: Remote real time analysis of energy consumption recorded by power meters
to optimize energetic efficiency

PALACE: Multi-model software for water demand prediction, based on a hybrid (time
series + external factors) approach
SMART WATER GRID INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2013
12-14 November 2013, Incheon, Republic of Korea
REFERENCES
(1) Vivian Castro, Jan G. Janssens (2011), Mixed Private-Public Ownership Companies
“Empresa Mixta” http://ppp.worldbank.org/public-private-partnership/library/mixedprivate-public-ownership-companies-empresa-mixta (accessed 22 August 2013)
(2) Ignacio Casals, Carlos Montero (2010), Decision support tool for sewer rehabilitation
planning in a Mediterranean city, IWA World Water Congress 2010, Montreal, 19-24
Sept 2010
(3) Aqualogy Business Lien Environment, http://www.aqualogy.net/en/businesslines/environment/31/infrastructure-automation (accessed 22 August 2013)
(4) iBeach website http://www.ibeach.es/ (accessed 23 August 2013)
(5) D. Suñer, P. Malgrat, P. Leitão and B. Clochard (2008), COWAMA (Coastal Water
Management) Integrated and Real Time Management System of Urban Water Cycle to
Protect the Quality of Bathing Waters, 11th Int. Conference on Urban Drainage,
Edinburgh,
Scotland,
UK
http://web.sbe.hw.ac.uk/staffprofiles/bdgsa/11th_International_Conference_on_Urba
n_Drainage_CD/ICUD08/pdfs/28.pdf (accessed 23 August 2013)
(6) Ice
Pigging
Article,
UnderGround
Newspaper
http://www.utilityservice.com/dwnlds/articles/IcePigging_UnderGroundConst.pdf
(7) J.Marco, I. Casals, D. Santracreu (2011), Water reuse and sustainability in the city of
Alicante, 8th IWA International Conference on Water Reclamation and Reuse, 26-29
September 2011, Barcelona, Spain