AD4GD / Work Packages

Comprehensive monitoring of water pollution

Lead: KWB

Environment: Urban and peri-urban

Location: Berlin, Germany

CitSci approach: Dashboard co-creation

Context, stakeholders and challenges

Berlin’s ecosystems are facing challenges due to rapid densification and climate change, including soil sealing, longer dry periods, heat island issues, and low connectivity of blue/green areas. Despite this, Berlin is considered a “green city” with 30% of the total area covered by green spaces and 6% by water. Many of these small urban lakes are heavily dependent on groundwater or storm water, making them susceptible to degradation due to extreme weather conditions. Small urban lakes offer potential for biodiversity and recreational spaces.

However, there are currently no simple methods to identify particularly polluted lakes, investigate pollution types, prioritize and evaluate measures. The deployment of AI technologies and the combination of available data can potentially improve the management of small urban lakes, identify stressors of water quality, and make more informed decisions.

Ambition

The project aims to improve the management of small urban lakes in Berlin by developing a planning tool to prioritize and select lakes with the greatest need for improvement in water quality. AD4GD also seeks to establish monitoring through human measurements, Earth Observation, and IoT devices, and develop AI approaches for data validation and mash-up.

The methodology will combine data and knowledge from various sources, including Earth Observation, ground sensors, human measurement, and crowdsourcing/citizen observations. The aim is to assign one or more indices describing the current condition of small urban lakes and evaluate water availability, with the objective to improve the condition of small urban lakes and prioritize management actions.

The project also plans to develop existing action plans targeting water quality improvement and overcome cross-sectoral planning and actions, as well as promoting more inclusive governance activities with citizens by multi-stakeholder approaches. The project also seeks to establish a condition index into the Environmental Atlas and transferable, multi-stakeholder approaches for data integration and mash-up.