The emerging water technology symposium meets biennially with industry experts discussing the many water-related industries via presentations and panel discussions. The symposium includes leaders from manufacturing, government, engineering, labor, academia, and water efficiency. Themes include health, safety, and resiliency of plumbing systems around the world.
There are controversial changes to water efficiency standards in different countries around the world, with calls for more widespread, universal standards and regulations to put in place. The safety aspects have focused on monitoring and controlling Legionella and other waterborne pathogens and calls for increased testing, detection, and contaminant containment.
Also the symposium delves into technology, innovation and research. Advanced metering has been a topic revisited to allow better two-way communication between utilities and customers for water efficiency and considerations for reducing use. For data centers, this can simply be sharing the water use for the cooling systems and how they are performing, as well as letting the utility know how the systems are affected by weather or other factors. Data centers are starting to gain more attention for their water use as a specific category and we may see more to come on non-potable water uses as well as how water quality and quantity at intake and discharge can be factored in for the utility and data center end users.
