"Drip, Drip, Drip Under Control" "Integrated Support System for Efficient Water Usage and Resources Management" EWA MAGIERA1, MAŁGORZATA GAJOS-GRŽETIĆ2, EWELINA DOLUK3 1University of Silesia in Katowice, Faculty of Computer Science and Materials Science, Institute of Computer Science, e-mail: ewa.magiera@us.edu.pl, 2University of Silesia in Katowice, Division of Biomedical Computer Science, Będzińska 39, 41-205 Sosnowiec e-mail: malgorzata.gajos@us.edu.pl, 3University of Silesia in Katowice, Dział Projektów, ul. Bankowa 12 40-007 Katowice Map of water images - save water and enjoy it in life, Carmel, February 2016. Photo: M. Gajos-Gržetić

Description popularizing the research project

It must be a kind of exaggeration to talk about problems with water, shortage of water and saving water. Every single time you open the tap it is there. Hot or cold. Whichever you need. Even if you need the temperature in between, you can easily adjust it. Wherever you want it: in a kitchen sink, a bathtub, a washbasin, in the basement, in the garage and in the garden. Always: when you wake up in the morning, late at night for your evening shower, in winter, summer, spring and autumn, when it is freezing cold , and in the scorching heat. At every address, on every single floor of the blocks in the neighbourhood, in all the houses in the part of the town, all the schools, office buildings, factories, railway stations and even on trains. If all taps in Poland were marked with a single blue dot, there would be no room for any other colour. And it is like that at every imaginable latitude and longitude.
Is it?
Activists and volunteers of charities reaching the most forgotten and neglected places in the world, saw with their own eyes people who carry their mere 10 litres of water from kilometres away. In many countries of Africa, water is priceless. In Asia there is a growing problem of polluted water unsuitable for drinking. Together with climate changes, the arid areas expand. The problem of water shortage may concern bigger and bigger population as it is constantly growing. There are more of us, the demand for potable water is growing just like the unquenchable thirst of the industry. Although nothing indicates it yet that we will be left without water within our reach soon, we have to consider it a plausible perspective for our children and grandchildren. It is also hard to imagine a change of our luxurious habits. It is worth looking carefully into the flow of water which we use to wash dishes or hands, and the water level in the bathtub. Other internet users will keep an eye on their water together with us. Together, with IT systems closing an unnecessarily open tap, it will be easier.

Abstract

Project "Integrated Support System for Efficient Water Usage and Resources Management", acronymed ISS-EWATUS, was launched on 1 February 2014. ISS-EWATUS is scheduled for 36 months and is carried out under the EU's Seventh Framework Programme for Research (FP7), in the use of ICT for water resources management (Objective ICT-2013.6.3). University of Silesia is the project coordinator. The partners forming the consortium are academic institutions, scientific research units and enterprises of five European countries: Poland - University of Silesia (US), Institute for Ecology of Industrial Areas (IETU), Municipal Water Company of Sos-nowiec (RPWiK), United Kingdom - Loughborough University (LU), Brunel University (BU), Spain - Universidad Pablo de Olavide (UPO), Greece - Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH), Municipal Water Company of Skiathos (DEYASK), DOTSOFT S.A. (DS), the Netherlands - VU University Amsterdam (VU). Dr. Ewa Magiera (US) is the Project Coordinator. The objective of the ISS-EWATUS project is to increase awareness of water consumption, to change people's behaviour concerning the excessive use of water and to create new models of water consumption at both municipal and household levels. As a part of the project we devel-oped an integrated system for effective water use. The system consists of the decision support system (DSS) at the household and urban level and social platform Water Social (waterso-cial.org), which, through the gamification and the creation of a map of water areas around the world, promotes an efficient use of water and changes the behaviour of its users.

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