Why next-generation tech is the next big leap towards the cities of the future

Two years ago, low rainfall, early snowmelt, rising temperatures and other factors connected to climate change caused Italy’s worst drought in seven decades. The water level in the Po River, the country’s longest and largest waterway, dropped by two and a half metres (eight feet) below its average. The arid conditions exposed the Po’s white, sandy bottom and prevented irrigation in the Po Valley, northern Italy’s breadbasket, which supplies 40 per cent of the country’s food, including rice, corn, tomatoes and Parmesan cheese. And water scarcity reaches beyond farming and food supply. Towns in the Po Valley, situated in one of Italy’s richest regions, had to ration water.

Unfortunately, the drought was not a freak incident. “Climate model projections for Europe indicate that meteorological droughts, due to lacking precipitation, will become increasingly more frequent and severe, especially in the second part of the 21st century,” researchers studying the event wrote in a paper published in the journal Science.

The severity of the situation isn’t lost on UK and EU leaders. In late June, the UK capital hosted London Climate Action Week. The event, which is part of the UN’s Race to Resilience campaign, organised more than 300 in-person and virtual gatherings, including an event at Bentley’s UK headquarters, aimed at advancing the conversation about sustainability and global solutions to climate change.

In late May, water resilience was the theme of EU Green Week, a conference taking place primarily in Brussels. In May, the European Environment Agency (EEA) also released its first European Climate Risk Assessment (EUCRA) report, as part of the European Union’s strategy on climate change adaptation. The report noted that prolonged droughts cause large economic damage and can severely degrade water resources, and that extreme precipitation and flooding has increased in large parts of Europe. “The trend is expected to rise further in warming climate,” researchers said.

One solution that can help countries make their infrastructure more sustainable and prepare it for the warming climate are digital twins. Infrastructure digital twins are virtual representations of roads, power grids, water and sewer systems, buildings and even cities. By incorporating real-time data into the digital models, infrastructure digital twins offer city leaders and other users a comprehensive and accurate representation of their assets and systems.

Bentley Systems, an infrastructure engineering software company, has been building digital twin technology that allow users around the world to design, assemble and operate their infrastructure assets, make them more sustainable and resilient. “We must be incredibly efficient and holistic in what we do and how we approach these water management challenges,” said Thomas Krom, the environment segment director at Seequent, the Bentley subsurface company. Krom said the adoption of open, digital standards will promote interoperability and interconnectivity between all vested interests.

In the UK, Seequent and Bentley Systems have provided software for projects such as High Speed 2 (HS2), a high-speed railway which will connect London with Birmingham, Manchester, and the East Midlands by 2033. HS2 has a sustainability vision of zero-carbon rail travel. “The way we travel – and the way we build our transport networks – are critical to our response to this global emergency,” HS2 says on its website.

Many users across the UK and EU and elsewhere around the world have already deployed digital twins to build, upgrade and operate their water systems. Here are a few examples:

Updating London’s Victorian-era sewer system

London’s 150-year-old sewer system put an end to the Great Stink that plagued the British capital in the mid-1800s. But today, with London home to eight million people, the system needs an upgrade. Costain, VINCI and Bachy Soletanche are working in a joint venture to design, construct and replace the eastern section of the sewer system with a new super-sewer called the Thames Tideway Tunnel project. Bentley’s digital twin and other solutions are part of that work, helping the project team visualise the entire construction process. When finished, the new sewer system will mitigate wastewater pollution and significantly improve the water quality of the River Thames over the next 120 years.