WaterWebTools

Fantastic news. Happy to see that the data produced by our live sensor systems are used and valued, and can help people decide on where to go for a nice warm swim. If you would also like a live sensor system for your lake or beach just let us know - we can tailor the solution to your needs and can deploy everything from our simple temperature sensors to our advanced metabolism water quality system.

Well done Cecilie, and thank you for sharing.

Climate change including warmer temperatures can allow aquatic species to gradually expand their range into habitats that are currently too cold. But species can also be introduced rapidly as invasive species to an area by boat ballast water, accidental release, and quite often, by people.   A recent example of an invasion is the spreading of quagga mussels in the iconic Lake Geneva. These effective filter feeding mussels were first detected in Switzerland in 2014, and have now found their way to numerous rivers and are also found in Lakes Biel, Constance and Geneva. The mussels have the potential to bring about changes to the physical environment by changing underwater light conditions, and also the entire food web. Research by Prof. Bastiaan Ibelings and colleagues suggests that this rapid expansion has the potential to lead to the greatest change in the aquatic ecosystem of Lake Geneva since eutrophication (nutrient enrichment).   But to better understand how the mussels could influence both the physical and biogeochemical environment of Lake Geneva, a holistic model of the lake that describes physical as well as biogeochemical dynamics is needed. Such model would allow large scale virtual experiments, and help us better understand what could be in store for Lake Geneva. This is where we come in at WaterITech.   Developing and applying advanced computer models to understand the impacts of climate change and human interventions on aquatic ecosystems is at the core of what we do. We often produce forecasts tailored specifically to an individual lake, reservoir or river system. While the future projections for the health of aquatic ecosystems are often worrisome, it is not all bad news, and often the models can help us understand what we can do to alleviate or even diminish the expected impacts of climate change and invasions.   Bas Ibelings and his group has just been awarded a new project funded by the Velux Foundation in Switzerland. The project seeks to better understand the role of quaggas in Lake Geneva. In this project, we have been trusted with developing a new mussel module for the open source Water Ecosystems Tool (WET), which will then be applied to Lake Geneva. Just like all our other developments to WET, the new module will be open source and freely available to all. If you would like to learn more, and perhaps interested in trying out the new features yourself, or would like our assistance on a modelling project, please feel free to reach out.

Science in action! It was a great pleasure and with a sense of pride that we visited Lake Ormstrup this week. The lake is currently undergoing a full-scale restoration operation, which will go on for another few weeks. The methods used, including biomanipulation and precision sediment dredging, and highly detailed assessments of the degree of success and processes involved (through observations and advanced modelling before, during and after the restoration), is a collective effort between several Danish Universities and private companies – all made possible due to Grundfos Foundation | PDJF and their funding of the RePair and Lake Stewardship projects. Our role at WaterITech is to build a digital twin of the lake, which utilize data from multiple project partners, and to use this for assessing the efficacy of the restoration. Virtual experiments with the digital twin suggest that the lake can recover to a clear water state if the project succeeds with removing 90% or more of the active/mobile nutrient pools in the bottom sediments. So we are rooting for the lake robot, which is right now removing the upper layer of the bottom sediments, which is pumped to shore and then dried and treated for reuse. The ambition is to develop effective restoration approaches, which can be used beyond Lake Ormstrup. And there is a huge potential! In Denmark we have more than 120,000 lakes and ponds. Around 980 lakes are included in water action planning in Denmark. When assessing both ecological and chemical state of these lakes, only 5 of these 980 lakes are in good state. This is not a typo – only 5! So there is lots of work to be done. First addressing the root of the problem – excessive external nutrient loads. And then, to greatly speed up recovery, lake restoration of key lakes can be done – for example using the approaches developed, tested and optimized in Lake Ormstrup. A big thanks to project manager Ole Wolff for hosting us at the lake. It was inspirational and a great learning experience to hear about all the challenges and solutions when transforming science inputs from multiple partners into a full-scale real-world application. Also great to see and discuss the project onsite with Karina Esmine Fredbo and Maiken Rabøl Rossen from Naturvidenskabernes Hus, Tobias Kuhlmann Andersen from DTU Aqua, Jacob from Dansk IngeniørService A/S and Anders Nielsen and Dennis Trolle from WaterITech - always a pleasure.

A big day for us at WaterITech and WaterWebTools. We have just delivered and installed the first new generation data buoy. Today, we installed the data buoy together with Torben Lauridsen and Lene Vigh from Institut for Ecoscience - Aarhus Universitet. They will use the data buoy as part of eLTER. A mission for eLTER, which you can learn more about here: https://elter-ri.eu/, is to catalyse new insights about the impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and unsustainable resource use in aquatic ecosystems. We are happy to see our data buoy contribute to such an important mission. In this case, the data buoy will follow both real-time and the long-term trajectory of the ecosystem state of Lake Hinge in Denmark. All the data is made easily available through our WaterWebTools Platform, which is already now streaming live from the lake. We are currently developing a new metabolism data processing tool that – based on high-frequency temperature and oxygen measurements from the data buoy – can derive primary production, ecosystem respiration, and hypolimnetic oxygen deficit – parameters that are strongly linked to traditional water quality parameters such as nutrient and algal levels. This feature will also be made operational through the WaterWebTools Platform and seamlessly integrated with our data buoy – making it super easy for our users to follow the ecosystem state. This will effectively represent a “Smart Watch” for aquatic ecosystems, which can monitor a system in real-time, but also follow the system over longer periods of time and indicate whether the ecosystem state is improving or deteriorating. If you are also interested in a data buoy for your aquatic ecosystem, you can check out our website at https://lnkd.in/dYyeWwBR for more info.

And you can find the digital twin of Lake Ormstrup right here: https://lnkd.in/dfU3RZHQ

Great work by Anders Nielsen in Vienna, giving a live demo of the MERLIN web app, which is integrated into our WaterWebTools Platform. Why use the WaterWebTools Platform for disseminating environmental data in a huge EU project such as MERLIN? Well, just to mention two good reasons: 1. There is no point in reinventing the wheel. A lot of the interactive functionality desired by MERLIN partners (and in general by research partners seeking to disseminate data on maps and dashboards) is already supported by the WaterWebTools Platform – and we are committed to continuously advancing the portal to even better match the needs and expectations. 2. MERLIN data will live beyond MERLIN. Too many research projects develop data and digital tools, which dies once the project is completed. Therefore, a lot of time and resource is potentially wasted. Using us as a trusted partner, we can make sure that digital solutions and data will live beyond an individual project’s lifetime. Specifically for MERLIN, we have promised to fund and operate the web portal and host all the data for minimum one year beyond the project’s lifetime. By that time, our clear expectation is that new projects (some already underway) will also be using and supporting the WaterWebTools Platform, allowing us to keep the portal and data alive for many years to come. If you would like to learn more about how you can use the portal in your projects please check our website and always feel free to reach out for an informal discussion about options for getting started. #R&D #Digital #GreenDeal

How can we build a durable Smart Watch for an aquatic ecosystem? Something that can monitor the health of a river, lake, wetland, reservoir or fjord ecosystem in real-time and also follow long-term trajectories. So that you will know if the water quality trend is improving or deteriorating. This is something we have discussed for years at WaterITech and also while doing research at Aarhus University. Well, we now have a solution for this – or at least all the building blocks for the solution, which temporarily is taking up space in our meeting room as you can see on the picture. For more than a decade, we have tested and used some of the most advanced water quality sensors available to monitor the state of the water environment – often based on expensive sensors, which typically require a lot of servicing, regular maintenance and recalibrations. Real-time water quality monitoring can therefore be a costly affair. To enable a much more widespread use of real-time water quality sensing, WaterITech and WaterWebTools have joined forces to build a low cost and low maintenance monitoring system, which combines some of the most durable water quality sensors with advanced AI-based data processing. It is well documented how metabolism, including gross primary production and ecosystem respiration, can be derived from high-frequency oxygen measurements based on advanced data processing and modelling. These metabolism parameters are strongly linked to traditional water quality parameters, such as algae and nutrient levels. We are currently making this scientific insight operational through a seamless integration of our customizable data buoy and a new Metabolism app in the WaterWebTools Platform. The first monitoring systems are already sold and currently being assembled, and will be delivered for installation in two lakes in Denmark in March. Stay tuned for launch. More are already in the pipeline. If you are interested in more details about the data buoy and concept, and how you can get your hands on one, please check out our website https://lnkd.in/dYyeWwBR.

Where are the areas with the highest potential for aquatic ecosystem restoration in Europe, which areas should be prioritized for restoration, and how could these be restored to achieve the highest possible benefits for nature and society? This information is currently being developed in the MERLIN project – one of the largest projects ever funded under the EU’s Horizon2020 program with more than 40 partners. We are immensely proud to assist MERLIN partners in making all this valuable information easily available for all via our WaterWebTools Platform. MERLIN itself is producing vast amounts of data through advanced data processing and modelling, as well as making some useful initial visualizations of this. We have agreed, and committed ourselves, to take data hosting and visualization to the next level, by integrating key MERLIN data into our WaterWebTools Platform – thereby making sure that key data will live beyond the MERLIN project’s lifetime. This will effectively be a new solution inside the platform, alongside our existing forecasting and real-time data solutions, which are already used across Europe. Throughout 2024 we will continue to integrate data produced in MERLIN, as well as making further advances to the platform. Our ambition is to develop a new solution that is not only relevant for MERLIN, but can be used in many future projects, and assist scientists and water & landscape managers with sharing and visualizing vast amounts of data. If you are interested in learning more about this, and perhaps take a peek at the portal yourself, feel free to reach out. #water #management #restoration #publicprivatepartnerships #innovation

Since the beginning of 2022, the Danish Meteorological Institute has been tasked with developing an early flood warning system for Denmark. At WaterITech, we take pride in collaborating with their new Department of Flooding and Hydrology in several R&D projects - and contributing our many years of experience with open source hydrological modelling and operational forecasting through our WaterWebTools Platform. Most recently, this has included developing and testing new rapid approaches for flood extent mapping, using either real-time sensor data, hydrological forecasts, or a combination of the two. The software workflow is now up’n running and has been successfully tested for Vejle – an area of Denmark prone to flooding. The fundamental approach can, however, be used for any area in Denmark and beyond, where hydrological forecasting is applied. The team at Danish Meteorological Institute will present this and more at the upcoming EGU General Assembly in Vienna in April 2024. If you would like to learn more about this project, please feel free to reach out. Michael Butts, Charlotte Agata Plum, Emma Dybro Thomassen, Grith Martinsen, Jonas Wied Pedersen, Sanita Dhaubanjar, Anders Nielsen, Dennis Trolle #opensource #hydrology #flooding #forecasting #publicprivatecollaboration