Process automation provides tools for sustainable water resources management.
Access to clean water and sanitation is a basic human right and a Sustainable Development Goal of the United Nations. Yet, scarcity is a critical global challenge. By 2050, the global water demand for domestic, industrial, and agricultural uses is expected to increase by 30%, threatening to exceed availability. Therefore, all water use, particularly industrial, needs to be efficient and sustainable.
Water security requires sound water management. Water management is essentially the core of environmental technology due to its heavy use in industry for fabricating, processing, washing, diluting, cooling/heating, or transporting products, and for electric power production. Optimizing water usage in industrial settings and treating wastewater before it’s returned to nature are vital components of water management.
Qualified workers are essential to engineering, deploying, maintaining, and operating water and wastewater systems and infrastructures that collect, treat, and distribute water. These installations rely heavily on process automation – specifically on instrumentation and process control devices and systems – key features of our educational and industrial expertise.
Water 4.0 transforms skills requirements.
IT and new technologies are modernizing the water industry, with water systems and facilities turning to digitalization and automation to improve overall efficiency, reliability, and safety and to partially offset skilled-labor shortages. The integration of Industry 4.0 methodologies and technologies is revolutionizing water management, giving rise to Water 4.0.
Cyber-physical systems, the industrial Internet of Things (IoT), big data, IT systems, decentralization, and system interoperability are all features of Water 4.0. For example, physical-assets management is increasingly performed through cloud-based instrumentation data. This digitalization of the water industry directly impacts skills requirements for water technicians and process control specialists. Water 4.0 allows intelligent networking of all water stakeholders – users and suppliers – in a sustainable water infrastructure.
As the water industry becomes high tech, so must its workers. The water and wastewater workforce needs a broader range of skills beyond a comprehensive, structural-level understanding of water systems. They need digital literacy and troubleshooting skills and wide-ranging soft skills, such as communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking, all of which promote capable decision-making and problem-solving in cross-disciplinary teams.