From Bari to Tel Aviv, two appointments to learn about new water technologies

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Reuse and recycling, desalination, repair of leaks in pipelines, monitoring and smart management. These are some of the technologies that would allow Italy to deal with the now chronic lack of rainfall (data from the Cnr of Bologna certify that, from October 2022 to February 2023, rainfall fell by a fifth compared to the average, with a 35 % less in the North, a figure worse than 2022), with a national water network that has average losses of 40% and with the lack or non-maintenance or adaptation of infrastructures such as canals, dams and reservoirs, strategic in containing water.

The appointment – double – to get to know them better is the Water Innovation Summit of Bari, at the Fiera del Levante of Bari of 21, 22 and 23 June and, immediately after, the event Europe Water Emergency Preparednessfrom 26 to 29 June a Tel-Avivorganized by the Israel Export Institute, the Israeli Ministry of Economy and the Israel Water Authority.

In Bari, technologies focused on the search for leaks in pipelines, desalination and prediction of polluting events, digitization of sewage networks will be at the center of the discussion. The Israeli appointment, which will be attended by over 40 local companies and over 70 companies, water service companies and European government authorities. It will take the form of round tables, b2b meetings, field visits and demonstrations.

Industry leader

Today Israel is the only semi-arid country with a water surplus, making it a technology hub for water-related technologies that translates into about $2.4 billion in exports annually in technology and equipment and 169 innovative companies, locally active in infrastructure monitoring, water generation, water treatment and reuse (50%) and network management. «Drip irrigation was invented here, and is now used all over the world, but perhaps the greatest achievement over the years has been making desalination scalable and increasingly easier to implement, which today supplies 20% of drinking water total,” explains Raphaële Moog, head of the water sector at the Israel Export Institute. «But the country is also a leader in the treatment of waste water, being today able to recycle 90% of the water commonly considered waste (Italy today does it at 5%) and has a physiological loss of pipelines that does not exceed 8 %, thanks to monitoring and control actions – also via satellite – of losses and consumption forecasts».

Innovations in the field

Among the most important companies in the sector, Watergen, specialized in technologies that capture air humidity to produce high quality drinking water; Rotec and Ide, world leaders in the construction of desalination plants and the newest Blue Green Water Technologies, which have developed methods and protocols to restore vast expanses of contaminated water in a few days, restoring environmental balance and biodiversity; Aquarius Spectrum (of which the Italian company Pipecare is the exclusive licensee for our country), which consists of sensors distributed on the network and a data analysis platform, which make it possible to accurately detect the location of leaks and follow their evolution up to repair.