The rapid expansion of global data production is a prominent contemporary trend, surging from 33 zettabytes in 2018 to an anticipated 175 zettabytes by 2025. Currently, approximately 80% of data storage, processing, and analysis is concentrated within data centres and centralised computing infrastructures, while only 20% occurs within smart connected devices. The landscape is poised for a significant transformation by 2025.
In this context, in the last few years, water management digitalization has emerged as an essential need. Within the challenging scenario depicted by the Sustainable Development Goals, growing population pressures, climate variability, and increasing water scarcity, digital technologies are appointed as the crucial enabler for efficient water resource allocation, monitoring, and conservation. Nevertheless, the diverse and often fragmented nature of water systems, coupled with issues of data security and privacy, present some relevant barriers. Moreover, ensuring equitable access to digital water solutions across regions and communities demands careful consideration. It is worth noting, that, despite these barriers, the benefits of water digitalization, including real-time monitoring, predictive analytics, and improved resource allocation, make it an essential frontier to tackle in addressing the water-related challenges.
The implementation of the EU Strategy for data will catalyse this shift, fostering the widespread adoption of multiple Data Spaces throughout Europe. From a high-level perspective, a Data Space is a community of organisations which operate consistently towards data sharing on the basis of an agreed set of technical, legal, and business procedures. Both European individuals and entities will have reclaimed agency over their data, securing a rightful and equitable position within the digital sector. By 2030, this transformative scenario is poised to become the new norm, with an increasingly discerning audience demanding no alternative. Data Spaces at European level will then be the collaborative frameworks and initiatives that will facilitate the secure and efficient sharing of data across EU member states and beyond.
Data Spaces are designed to foster innovation, economic growth, and digital transformation by breaking down data silos and enabling the seamless exchange of information in various sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation. They are a crucial component of the European Union’s broader data strategy, which emphasises data sovereignty, privacy, and security while promoting interoperability and data-driven decision-making. By creating harmonised data ecosystems, Europe seeks to harness the full potential of data for the benefit of its citizens and businesses while ensuring compliance with data protection regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Key attributes of a common European data space encompass the establishment of a secure and privacy-centric infrastructure designed to aggregate, access, exchange, process, and utilise data. This embodies a coherent structure facilitating equitable and transparent data access and utilisation, underpinned by non-discriminatory principles, alongside the implementation of robust and credible data governance mechanisms. Such an initiative adheres rigorously to European principles and regulations, including those pertaining to personal data protection, consumer safeguards, and competition law. Within data spaces, data owners are afforded the capacity to authorise access to or share specific personal or non-personal data under their jurisdiction. Furthermore, the data made available within this context can be subject to reuse, either through compensation, including remuneration, or on a complimentary basis. This approach is marked by inclusivity, welcoming a diverse array of organisations and individuals to participate collaboratively. Right now, the following data spaces have been under development:
- Health
- Industrial & Manufacturing
- Agriculture
- Finance
- Mobility
- Green deal
- Energy
- Public administration
- Skills
Although water has not a specific data space, it is in part considered as a reference use case under the umbrella of the Green Deal Data Space community of practice within the GREAT EU project. On the other hand, to the create a specific data space for water, the WATERVERSE EU project aims to develop a Water Data Management Ecosystem (WDME), comprising the software packages, algorithms, cloud-computing services, and general infrastructure, which can be utilised by water organisations to collect, store, analyse, and leverage water domain data. More specifically, the WATERVERSE WDME is expected to make data management practices and resources in the water sector accessible, affordable, secure, FAIR, and easy to use. This will significantly improve the usability of the data and the interoperability of data-intensive processes, thus lowering the entry barrier to data spaces, enhancing the resilience of water utilities, and boosting the perceived value of data, and therefore the respective market opportunities.
In conclusion, we identify several challenges and opportunities associated with the establishment of a water data space. These challenges primarily encompass (i) issues surrounding data sovereignty, (ii) the need to create a level playing field for data access, (iii) the development of decentralised soft infrastructure, and (iv) the establishment of effective public-private governance structures. Realising the opportunities needs a comprehensive approach that can catalyse meaningful digital transformation across several dimensions: human, organisational, technological, data-related, as well as governance dimension. The achievement of these dimensions collectively will be a must in harnessing the full potential of a water data space in the European context.
References
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/871513/worldwide-data-created/
- https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/2017-the-year-that-data-and-analytics-go-mainstream
- https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/strategy-data
- Principis de disseny per a espais de dades: https://design-principles-for-data-spaces.org/
- https://www.greatproject.eu/
- https://waterverse.eu/
- https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/
- https://www.trauner.at/shop/emergency-preparedness