IDWS 2025 Agenda

Sustainable desalination using green energy in the industrial age 5.1

Managing Health through Licensing of Water Professionals to ensure safe drinking water

DC Water serves over 700,000 residents and more than 25,000,000 annual visitors in the nation's capital, which is unique as the only major US metropolitan city without a second source of drinking water. Guided by a strategic plan, Blueprint 2.0, built around 5 imperatives - healthy, safe and well; reliable; equitable; resilient; and sustainable - DC Water is focused on innovative approaches to water management. In this keynote, the CEO will highlight the resilient and sustainable imperatives, exploring how DC Water plans to address the challenges of a single water source and the future direction of regional policy to ensure reliable and sustainable water services.

This segment, organised by the Saudi Water Authority in collaboration with the World Bank, will showcase successful regulatory models, share best practices, and discuss the regulatory transformation journeys experienced by various countries.

The water and wastewater sector is at a crossroads, facing escalating pressures from population growth, water scarcity, and pollution, but also unprecedented opportunities for renewal. This keynote will explore how policymakers and regulators can enable innovation, mobilize private participation, and attract sustainable finance to strengthen resilience and performance. Drawing lessons from the reset process in England and Wales and global experiences, it will highlight how effective, transparent, and independent regulation is critical to safeguard the long-term sustainability of the services and success of public-private partnerships. By turning regulation into a catalyst for trust, investment, and innovation, the sector can deliver resilient and inclusive water services fit for the future.

Specially curated panel bringing together water and environmental leaders to discuss navigating water and environmental challenges in their respective country and the frameworks used to encourage innovation in tackling them, co-organised by SWA and the World Bank Group.

- Ease your operation by Centralized and integrated data and insights (SCADA, LIMS, etc) & Create defensible reports in a couple clicks - Real time Access information remotely in the field on a mobile device

Interactive segment with audience questions and closing reflections from the panelists.

Get first-hand insights from executive leaders as they delve into how local content strategies and intellectual property frameworks can foster sustainable solutions, drive technological advancements, and support Saudi Arabia's vision for water resource management. Gain exclusive insights into the intersection of policy, innovation, and collaboration in addressing one of the most critical challenges of our time.

Experiences and insights of Yangtze River Basin covering governance, policies and regulation strategies, as well as water administrative of law enforcement.

Italmatch and IntelliSense will outline the application of industrial AI technology to for process optimization in Reverse Osmosis (RO) desalination. We will introduce our approach and key learnings from the mining and metals industry. We will discuss key value opportunities in data quality, normalization, predict-simulate-optimize for managing biofouling and component life, and integration of AI with chemistry. Generative AI technologies, when coupled with this objective-driven AI, show promise for embedding domain expertise for consistent operational improvement. Increased plant uptime, membrane life, and reduced operating costs are targeted.

High non-revenue water (NRW) in water supply systems is a global problem wasting valuable resources (water, chemicals and energy) and its management is a key challenge for water utilities worldwide. Very often lack of clear understanding of the causes of this high NRW and its key components hinders successful implementation of water loss reduction programmes.

Discuss how fostering transparency can build public trust, the role of establishing clear standards, and how smart incentives can drive desired behaviors.

Impact on Saudi Water Strategy, Saudi Vision 2030, SDG-6 and SWA Strategy

Excuting Strategies For Innovation & Results

Smart automation and digital solutions for efficient water operations and network optimization

A strategic overview of global water security challenges and evolving water strategies, including mega-projects, desalination advances, and the emergence of regional hubs driving water technology excellence across different continents.

Telling the story of how Avon Lake became the first to implement this technology in partnership with South Korean company Techwin. Discuss drivers for the pilot, including global supply chain challenges and addressing inefficiencies with previous water treatment solutions.

A new understanding of drinking water and the standards that BWF develops and brings into the global space through worldwide partnerships, educational programs, and technological innovations. The focus lies on the fundamental human right to water, on health, and on access to water. On this basis, BWF expands access to high-quality water resources, grants source-quality certifications, establishes water sommeliers, awards breakthrough technologies, modernizes the hospitality program, connects countries across the world, and uses data and AI platforms to support decision-makers. By integrating these activities, BWF significantly enhances the future of drinking water worldwide.

Cyclic Sequencing Activated Sludge (CSAS) system, Envirocare’s proprietary biological treatment technology

Insights into how water and energy efficiency go hand-in-hand with water-first innovation driving circular value chains, recovering heat, recycling water, and reducing waste across sectors.

Equatic’s seawater electrolysis technology, which couples permanent carbon dioxide removal (CDR) with green hydrogen production and Floating Desalination Unit (FDU)

Executed by SSEM focusing on innovative execution and advanced engineering solutions that have been implemented across both water and energy.

Approach to integrating AI-powered analytics, IoT-enabled infrastructure, and advanced digital platforms to address the challenges of water scarcity and environmental sustainability while exploring the role of these technologies enabling smarter resource allocation, predictive maintenance, and enhanced customer experiences

How Coca-Cola is empowering over a 1,000 farmers across Saudi Arabia to help replenish 1.2 billion liters of water by 2034, using technology for soil moisture monitoring with the help of Flowmeters and daily Satellite images

Staff Competencies and People Management as a regulatory need for safe drinking water

Certalink is a digital platform that enables end-to-end carbon tracking across the full value chain. It ensures transparent, verifiable emissions data from source to final product, supporting informed decarbonization decisions and compliance with sustainability standards.

Transition from “patterns in ML” to “patterns in AI.” Followed by demonstrations how foundation models trained on global imagery and text can rapidly adapt to water-sector on problems—without requiring coding expertise. Focus on Coastal erosion, Flood inundation and Crop efficiency

Explores innovative approaches to leveraging desalination brine as a resource for carbon dioxide (CO2) removal, addressing two critical environmental challenges simultaneously: freshwater scarcity and climate change.

The session will spotlight water investments and offer insights on aligning financing with global sustainability goals.

Ensuring water security in increasingly complex and climate-stressed water systems requires a new operational paradigm: digital intelligence, the ability to sense, model, predict and act across entire networks with accuracy and speed. As one of Europe’s largest water operators, Acea has developed a set of integrated solutions that combine AI, advanced modelling and smart operational platforms to improve efficiency, reduce losses and strengthen resilience.

Discover how Singapore’s water ecosystem enables practical, cross-sector collaboration to drive sustainable innovation. This session will showcase how industry-to-industry partnerships, supported by a strong regulatory and innovation framework, are delivering real solutions to diverse water challenges in business and industrial settings.

This keynote showcases how successful public-private models are helping cities scale access, innovation, and accountability in water services.

The workshop will explore the concept of local content and how it is calculated, as well as the mechanisms for prioritizing local content at project, product, and investment levels. The workshop will also highlight key local content initiatives and success stories in the water, environment, and food sectors.

The panel will explore how good governance, industry stewardship, technology, and finance can create basin resilience and deliver scalable, long-term water sustainability solutions.

Using agentic and generative AI to provide a no-code tool for governments, utilities, corporates and investors to quantify the economic and societal value of water to different users. Application use cases that will be presented include: mobilising investment, optimising capital allocation, improving financial sustainability, and advancing equitable outcomes.

Explore how innovative partnerships and blended finance models are mobilizing multi-billion-dollar investments to accelerate water security projects across Africa. Showcases scalable strategies that can be replicated globally.

Water no longer plays by the same rules, and conventional UF systems often struggle to keep pace. That pressure sits at the center of Acuriant’s mission: tackling challenging water while maximizing limited space. In the past year, Acuriant’s Nanostone division has moved from a single-module offering to a three-module ceramic UF portfolio. In this session, Chief Science Officer Dr. Christian Göbbert introduces CUF|FlowTM, the newest module engineered for high-capacity UF water treatment. CUF|FlowTM shifts the economics of ceramic ultrafiltration and gives utilities a clear reason to re-evaluate PFAS-free ceramic UF for today’s rapidly changing, variable source-water conditions. The presentation outlines the science and performance advances behind the module, how it fits technically alongside the broader Nanostone ceramic UF portfolio, and why this launch positions CUF|FlowTM as the ceramic UF option capable of reshaping the competitive landscape with conventional UF.

Ideas for achieving global water security through commercial innovation and private sector partnerships rather than traditional aid models. The speech will emphasize how market-driven solutions and American technological leadership can deliver sustainable, scalable outcomes that create mutual economic benefits. It calls for bold international collaboration to transform water challenges into opportunities for prosperity.

Flocon®️ 305FT is a new tailor-made antiscalant designed specifically for brackish water RO systems, combining high-performance scale inhibition with online detectability features. Its advanced formulation provides strong protection against calcium carbonate, sulfate scales, and challenging water conditions containing iron, helping operators run systems at higher recovery with reduced fouling risk. Laboratory tests confirm excellent scale control under high-stress conditions and demonstrate a stable, linear fluorescence signal that enables precise real-time monitoring using standard sensors. Field experience further validates its value, showing stable membrane performance, and improved dosing accuracy. Overall, Flocon®️ 305FT offers an effective and reliable solution for BWRO plants seeking enhanced operational control, optimized chemical usage, and long-term membrane protection.

Insights into how water and energy efficiency go hand-in-hand with water-first innovation driving circular value chains, recovering heat, recycling water, and reducing waste across sectors.

Explore how to address water scarcity while simultaneously reducing energy consumption in desalination processes, particularly reverse osmosis (RO). The discussion will focus on ensuring long-term sustainability without compromising environmental integrity, and will feature perspectives from leading innovators in the water and energy sectors.

This case study explores smart irrigation systems and water reuse technologies that strengthen the water-energy-food nexus. It highlights specific projects how water technology innovations reduce water and energy consumption in agricultural settings while enhancing food security and climate resilience.

Researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) developed an innovative technology to extract lithium from seawater. This case study highlights the translation activities and collaborative efforts among the KAUST startup Lithium Infinity and key stakeholders in the Kingdom—including the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources, Ma’aden, Saudi Aramco, and KAUST. Together, they are advancing the use of this technology to extract battery-grade lithium from in-Kingdom resources such as oil-field produced water, with the broader goal of establishing a localized lithium supply chain in Saudi Arabia.