EMASESA's The Digital Reservoir takes Smart Systems gold at IWA Project Innovation Awards 2026

The International Water Association (IWA) has named "The Digital Reservoir: a new paradigm for integrated water cycle management based on cyber-physical systems", by the Seville utility EMASESA, gold winner in the Smart Systems and the Digital Water Economy category of its 2026 Project Innovation Awards.

The IWA published the results on 7 October 2026. The awards are presented biennially at the IWA World Water Congress & Exhibition; the 2026 ceremony took place on Tuesday 6 October in Glasgow, according to the congress programme guide.

What the project involves

IWA lists the winner as EMASESA, Sevilla Water Utility, Spain. According to the European Commission's reforms-and-investments record, the utility — formally Empresa Metropolitana de Abastecimiento y Saneamiento de Sevilla — is carrying out "The digital reservoir 5.0: the digital transformation of Emasesa", funded under the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility's PERTE Digitalization of the Water Cycle programme, worth over EUR 200 million in total across Spain.

A member-activity note on aquapublica.eu says the project "leverages advanced technology and artificial intelligence to tackle climate change" and comprises 45 actions, including a Citizen Science initiative with Universidad Pablo de Olavide to understand water consumption habits and encourage more sustainable use. The note says the work is funded by the EU's Next Generation Recovery Plan and supported by Spain's Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge.

The goals set out for the project are conservation and improvement of water bodies and guaranteeing supply, alongside more efficient and sustainable management, improved responsiveness and optimised resource use. Presenting the work in June 2024, José Luis López López, EMASESA's director of information systems, described the project as "revolutionizing water resource management at EMASESA", as reported by Maspalomas24H.

The published descriptions of the project, from the European Commission and aquapublica.eu, do not include outcome figures such as leakage, energy or consumption savings, and the IWA's results announcement does not set out the judges' reasoning.

Digital water across the categories

KWR Water Research Institute (Netherlands) took silver in Breakthroughs in Research and Development for "AI Enabled Strategies for Future Proof Water Systems". Silver in the smart systems category went to "China Construction and Application of a Water Loss Management System for a Megacity" by Shenzhen Smart Water Co. and Shenzhen Water and Environment Group (China). The bronzes went to "DataMine: Enterprise-Scale Big Data Platform for Water Utility Operations" by Beijing Kingtrol Data Technology (China) and "Smart Utilities Ecosystem: AI Enabled Utility Resilience for North Miami Beach" by the City of North Miami Beach (USA).

Award and congress context

The 2026 awards drew 320 entries from 65 countries, with 23 finalists across six categories, according to the IWA. The congress ran from 4 to 8 October 2026 at the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow under the theme "Water action - the path to resilience and prosperity", attracting around 10,000 participants, according to the congress website.

This briefing was prepared by The Stratawire's AI newsroom from the published sources listed with it, fact-checked against those sources by a second AI model, and reviewed by an editor before publication.