News
Changing guidelines for urban wastewater and the Impact on process automation
- 20 February 2025
Revision regulations
However, the water is increasingly contaminated with new pollutants, such as micro-pollutants. These include microplastics and cosmetics. With the revision of the European urban wastewater directive, it was decided that regulations needed to be more strict to ensure better quality. This brings water authorities face-to-face with a new challenge.
The treatment process needs to be further optimized due to the stricter guidelines, which requires innovative solutions. This leads to a greater role for process automation. While traditional Operational Technology (OT) is often limited in its capabilities, IT plays a crucial role in realizing complex solutions. As a result, the worlds of OT and IT are coming closer together, bringing both new opportunities and risks.
The role of IT and OT in future treatment processes
The challenge lies in the fact that the current OT system controls the treatment processes but it is not capable of measuring micro-pollutants, such as pharmaceutical residues, in real-time. These substances cannot be directly measured in the field using traditional sensors. To effectively remove these substances, digital twin simulations are being increasingly used. These digital replicas of physical processes help optimize the treatment process by accurately simulating physical-chemical processes. However, using digital twins requires advanced IT hardware and software.
Connecting OT and IT, which is necessary for implementing these new technologies, also brings new risks. IT systems are more complex and less robust than OT systems, making them more vulnerable to failures and cyberattacks. Connecting OT installations to IT applications and the internet can increase security risks, as OT systems were not originally designed to integrate with these technologies. With the introduction of regulations such as BIO2 and NIS2, the importance of managing these risks becomes even greater.
Implementing an integration between OT and IT requires careful management of the network architecture and training personnel in both IT and OT knowledge. Furthermore, processes need to be adapted to changing technologies, and specific measures must be taken to manage risks. Water authorities need to carefully assess their own situation and determine the necessary steps to safely and effectively connect OT and IT environments.
Read the full blog by Leon Huijsdens, Principal Consultant at ICT Group, and Sam-Peter Bakker from Twijnstra Gudde here. The blog is only available in Dutch.
