Water & Wastewater
A vital public service and a critical infrastructure spread over hundreds of kilometres: abstract, treat, distribute, then collect and treat wastewater. The challenge is not high pressure but supervising thousands of remote sites — and the sanitary quality of the water, at every moment.
The main families
Abstraction & treatment
Abstraction, filtration, disinfection (chlorine, UV, ozone), continuous quality monitoring. Compliance with the drinking water directive.
Collection & treatment (WWTP)
Treatment plants: biological treatment, sludge, stormwater overflow management. Controlled discharge to the environment.
Distribution & telemetry
Reservoirs, pumping stations, lift stations spread across the territory. RTUs and telemetry feeding a central SCADA.
Key challenges
- Sanitary quality — distributed water must stay potable at all times: online monitoring (chlorine, turbidity, pH), traceability, compliance with drinking water directive (EU) 2020/2184.
- Wide-area supervision — thousands of remote sites driven by RTUs and reported to SCADA via DNP3 or IEC 60870-5-104, over radio, cellular or fibre.
- Cybersecurity — critical infrastructure under NIS2; real targets (Maroochy, Oldsmar). Remote access and telemetry are the weak points.
- Energy — pumping is one of the largest energy costs of a water utility: variable-speed drives, off-peak optimization.
- Overflows & stormwater — managing storm peaks to avoid discharging untreated sewage to the environment.
Key technologies
Standards & references
Beyond the automation standards below, the sector is governed by the drinking water directive (EU) 2020/2184 and the urban wastewater directive, and relies on the telecontrol protocols DNP3 (IEEE 1815) and IEC 60870-5.
Major players
Utilities & operators
Veolia, SUEZ, Saur, American Water, Thames Water, Aguas de Barcelona.
Equipment & pumps
Xylem, Grundfos, KSB, Sulzer, Wilo, Evoqua.
Automation
Schneider Electric, Siemens, Rockwell, Emerson, ABB.
SCADA & telemetry
AVEVA, Ignition (Inductive Automation), Trihedral VTScada, Lacroix Sofrel.
Landmark incidents
The water sector provided some of the most cited OT cybersecurity cases, and a public-health crisis now used worldwide as a reference.
| Event | Year | Location | Lesson |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maroochy Shire | 2000 | Australia | A disgruntled contractor used radio to release hundreds of thousands of litres of sewage. First famous SCADA attack — insider threat and unsecured radio. |
| Flint | 2014 | Michigan, USA | Source change without corrosion control: lead leaching into the network. Major public-health crisis — quality over cost. |
| Oldsmar | 2021 | Florida, USA | Remote access to a treatment plant: an attempt to massively raise the lye dosage, caught and reversed by the operator. Raised the alarm on unmanaged remote access. |