Cetaqua, Water Technology Center
Cetaqua, Water Technology Center, represents a pioneering model of collaboration between government, academia, and industry.
This model has established itself as a European benchmark in the application of scientific knowledge to water and the environment. Its aim is to anticipate society's needs in order to propose new R&D solutions that ensure the sustainability and efficiency of the water cycle, taking local needs into account.
The Cetaqua ecosystem comprises four Cetaqua centers located in Barcelona, Galicia, Andalucía and Chile, all of which share the same strategy and work collaboratively.
Specifically, Cetaqua Andalucía was co-founded as the Andalusian Water Research Center Foundation in 2014 by Hidralia, the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), and the University of Málaga.
Cetaqua Andalucía has a laboratory equipped to prototype and test solutions before their final implementation.
Furthermore, since 2021 it has held the R&D&I Management System Certification (UNE166002).
The strategic areas in which Cetaqua Andalucía works are:
- Water resource management: We use artificial intelligence to estimate available water resources (conventional and alternative), water demand (agricultural, urban, and industrial), and the environmental, economic, and social impacts of different water allocation scenarios under conditions of high water stress. This includes the incorporation of new data science technologies (Artificial Intelligence) and the automatic processing of satellite imagery (remote sensing). Furthermore, we advocate for managed aquifer recharge as a high-value measure to improve the quantitative and chemical status of groundwater bodies.
- Water 4.0: Use of artificial intelligence and next-generation software architectures to develop digital services that improve decision-making in multiple operating environments: from the control and prediction of events that affect water quality, to the optimization of network efficiency and asset life cycle.
