18 Dec Operational Awareness to Improve Wastewater Operations

Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. With the world population forecasted to reach 9.6 billion by 2050, better management of water and sanitation will be needed to sustain human well-being while preserving ecosystem resilience. Currently, an estimated 2 billion people do not have access to sanitation, and at least 880 million lack access to a safe water supply

Sea level rise, unusually high tides, and extreme storms prompted a $1.2 billion program in the Hampton Roads Sanitation District (HRSD) of southeastern Virginia. The Sustainable Water Initiative for Tomorrow (SWIFT) involves replenishing the Potomac aquifer with up to 100 million gallons of water per day, which is treated to meet drinking water standards and matched to the existing groundwater chemistry in the aquifer.

As a cutting-edge climate action project, SWIFT provided the impetus for HRSD to employ new technologies, working with engineering firm Hazen and Sawyer.

First, they combined BIM designs with GIS maps, workflows, and analysis. Together, BIM and GIS data helped the district establish a feature-rich digital twin model of the SWIFT Research Center that provides the proof of concept for the program.

Planners can explore the design models via virtual and augmented reality by wearing goggles that immerse them in the infrastructure. Operational staff and construction crews can see where a new pump or asset will be located, for instance, and ensure that it gets placed in the correct location. Facility owners can assess the maintainability and operations of assets prior to construction. And the models provide an ideal training platform for new staff.

“Seeing the full context of the plant in the design phase really helped us see the value it can bring to operations and asset management,” said Anas Malkawi, chief of asset management, HRSD.

The digital twin is affording a higher level of operational intelligence with 3D data for newly constructed facilities and plans to capture the same for older facilities. While team members are currently gathering and visualizing real-time sensor data, they will eventually move to automating systems based on sensor input.

“We’ve achieved the standard value from our digital twin of [greater] situational awareness,” Malkawi said. When storms hit, the HRSD team works to reduce wastewater overflows and monitor infrastructure. With increasing storm intensity, and the compounding factors of subsidence and sea level rise, there’s greater urgency to protect wastewater drainage systems from spills. For this effort, the district will again lean on its GIS and digital twin technology.

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