Congress Agenda

The amendment to the Waste Water Directive 2024/3019 focuses primarily on reducing pollution discharged into water bodies via waste water. It also addresses issues relating to urban drainage. The presentation will discuss the Directive’s provisions on rainwater and storm water overflows. It will also outline the challenges associated with transposing the new requirements into national legislation.

The growing demands on water management coincide with ever-greater challenges resulting from increasingly frequent extreme weather events. Smart water management is the foundation of a climate-resilient city. These challenges are exerting strong pressure for innovation in the sector, to which operators, public administration, the scientific community, and industry must respond collectively.

An overview of the latest research projects, their results, and key findings will demonstrate how technical solutions and the water sector as a whole can make a significant contribution to climate change adaptation efforts.

For several years now, MPWiK S.A. in Wrocław has been consistently carrying out measures aimed at implementing an effective and coherent system of sustainable stormwater management. The aim of these measures is to increase Wrocław’s resilience to ongoing climate change and to ensure favourable conditions for the city’s social and economic development.
One of the next steps on this path is the update to the Guidelines on Rainwater Management in the City of Wrocław, announced in July this year.
The updated Guidelines address climate-related challenges and clearly emphasise the increasingly widespread approach to treating stormwater from development sites as a valuable resource. This water should be retained where it falls and utilised there.
A common challenge facing investors, designers and contractors today is the shift in approach – from traditional drainage to sustainable stormwater management.
The Wrocław GWO Guidelines introduce consistent principles for the planning, design and assessment of stormwater management solutions, taking into account the entire catchment area. The guidelines promote solutions involving infiltration, detention, retention and the integration of stormwater drainage systems with green-and-blue infrastructure.
The presentation will focus on the main principles underlying the GWO Guidelines of MPWiK S.A. in Wrocław, with particular emphasis on issues such as stormwater balancing, the rules for sizing and calculating GWO components, and the coordination process.

Water scarcity, climate change and the growing demand for water in industry mean that water recovered from wastewater – including domestic wastewater – following advanced treatment is becoming an alternative source of process water. The expert will discuss the concept of reclaimed water and its potential applications. In modern systems, water recovery rates can reach over 80–98 per cent thanks to the use of RO (Reverse Osmosis) and ZLD (Zero Liquid Discharge) technologies, which play a key role in water treatment and wastewater management. The speaker will highlight the main barriers to implementation, such as variations in water quality, the presence of contaminants, high capital and operating costs (CAPEX/OPEX), microbiological risks, regulatory requirements and public acceptance. He will also outline the potential applications of reclaimed water in industry, including in cooling processes, washing, fuel and hydrogen production, pressure testing, as well as in the remediation and reclamation of degraded sites. He will emphasise the importance of treatment technologies and the role of the end-user in determining quality parameters. During the presentation, the speaker will emphasise that the implementation of solutions depends on investment and operational costs, as well as on an assessment of environmental impact, in order to avoid deteriorating the condition of other environmental components; furthermore, the integration of water recovery into industrial processes is a key element of strategies for sustainable development and adaptation to climate change.

A key innovation of the proposed solution is the use of machine learning to forecast stormwater inflow and automatically control retention capacity in real time. This allows for a faster response to changing rainfall conditions, reduces the risk of sewer system overload and local flooding, and makes better use of the available reservoir capacity. The system can be pre-trained on synthetic data and then self-adapt based on actual rainfall-runoff events, without the need for constant supervision by specialists.
The solution is designed for local, underground retention systems that can integrate with existing facilities or be implemented as new installations. The collected water can be used for irrigating green spaces and for firefighting purposes. Underground reservoirs save space, reduce evaporation, and protect the water from light exposure, thereby minimizing the growth of microorganisms and the deterioration in water quality typical of open reservoirs.
The system’s localized nature reduces the need for integration with large-scale water supply infrastructure and facilitates its phased implementation. Solutions of this type are envisioned as the future standard for smart stormwater management. The presentation aims to encourage local governments, investors, and designers to apply these solutions in pilot projects as part of an implementation-oriented doctoral program—carried out in collaboration with the Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences and Amiblu Poland, and with the support of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

How to manage stormwater effectively throughout its entire cycle – from collection and conveyance, through retention, to controlled discharge. Particular emphasis will be placed on the importance of comprehensive prefabricated systems supplied by a single manufacturer, which ensure consistency of solutions, ease of design and operational reliability.
In the face of climate challenges and rising investment costs, solutions based on durable, natural materials such as concrete and steel are becoming increasingly important. These systems are not only environmentally friendly but also cost-effective to purchase and maintain, simple to implement and widely available, making modern rainwater management achievable not only for large-scale projects but also for smaller, more budget-constrained schemes.

Modern SMART solutions enable the effective planning of rainwater management systems, whilst reducing the required capacity of retention tanks and maximising the use of collected water.
The presentation will outline an approach based on the Wavin WiseDrop solution, which supports active rainwater management and optimises its use within a development. The benefits of implementing this solution will be demonstrated using a water balance analysis prepared for a sample site.
Congress participants will learn how intelligent management of rainwater retention and utilisation can increase the efficiency of developments, reduce infrastructure costs and support the achievement of sustainable development goals.

The presentation will focus on the planned construction of the Kamieniec Ząbkowicki multi-purpose reservoir. It will outline its role in the water management of the Nysa Kłodzka and in the flood protection system of the Odra river basin, as well as the benefits of the project, its impact, technical specifications, timetable and current stage of design.

The author will present the results of field and laboratory research carried out by the Institute of Environmental Engineering at the Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences on the Nysa Kłodzka River with regard to water management. Environmental flow studies were carried out on this section of the river; these flows are of particular importance to river users and to flora and fauna (minimum flow requirements) during low-water and dry periods. Sediment samples were also collected from the riverbed upstream and downstream of the Nysa–Otmuchów–Kozielno–Topola reservoir cascade, and from the section where the fifth reservoir, Kamieniec Ząbkowicki, is under construction. An analysis of the river sediment of the Nysa Kłodzka is essential in terms of the morphological processes of the river channel, as well as the transport and siltation of the four existing reservoirs and the newly planned Kamieniec Ząbkowicki reservoir. An analysis of the management of sediments deposited in the aforementioned reservoirs will also be presented. The new Kamieniec Ząbkowicki reservoir, in accordance with the guidelines of the Regulation of the Minister of Infrastructure of 2026, requires testing on a physical model. This research is being carried out at the Institute of Environmental Engineering, and the preliminary results will also be presented at the conference.

The presentation will focus on the planned construction of a dry flood retention reservoir on the Srebrny Potok as part of the measures to protect Elbląg from the effects of heavy rainfall and flash floods. The background to the project, the results of hydraulic modelling, and a comparison of the original concept for the retention reservoir with the variant selected for implementation will be presented.
Particular attention will be paid to utilising the reservoir’s full capacity to temporarily absorb the flood wave. The further stages of preparing the project, its significance for residents’ safety, and the need to reconcile the flood protection function with environmental and social considerations will also be discussed.

The regional wastewater treatment company in Gothenburg and the city of Gothenburg’s water utility have implemented a predictive control system using a model that, during heavy rainfall, optimizes stormwater overflows, retention use, and inflow to the wastewater treatment plant during heavy rainfall, in order to reduce the total annual pollutant loads entering the aquatic environment.

The paper will present examples of new information technologies that are increasingly being incorporated into the process of hydrodynamic modelling of drainage systems. Particular attention will be paid to the potential for using artificial intelligence as a tool to support the education and day-to-day work of modellers, and to facilitate the interpretation and understanding of simulation results by the clients themselves. The importance of these new solutions for collaboration between modelling teams and water supply and sewerage companies will also be highlighted, including their role in more effective data exchange, risk identification and investment planning.

We live in a world where the internet and AI have accustomed us to expecting instant answers, even to the most difficult questions. The reality of engineering, however, is quite different, although modern tools can significantly reduce the time needed to carry out even highly complex analyses. During the presentation, you will learn about the practical application of Scalgo Live and HEC-RAS in analysing water management in a section of the Barycz Valley. We will discuss in detail the process of collecting and integrating terrain data from a wide range of sources, including archival data, as well as the algorithm used to analyse this data – right through to formulating final conclusions for the client.

We live in a world where access to spatial data and the capabilities for processing it are evolving at an unprecedented pace. As a result, tasks that until recently were time-consuming, complex, and required specialized knowledge are now becoming accessible to everyone, enabling decision-making based on reliable data and analysis.
During the presentation, Scalgo’s latest, unique solution—DynamicFlood—will be showcased. It provides a ready-to-use configuration and parameterization of a hydrodynamic model for flash floods for any location in Poland. DynamicFlood integrates data from soil and agricultural maps, land-cover maps, and a digital elevation model, enabling the calculation and analysis of flash floods virtually instantly in a web browser. This solution not only significantly reduces model preparation time but also ensures exceptionally fast computation times—thanks to Scalgo’s carefully designed IT infrastructure based on graphics processing units (GPUs). In practice, this means that you’re just a few clicks away from selecting a watershed to running a simulation.
An expert invites you to attend a presentation that will demonstrate how DynamicFlood shortens the path from data to reliable results.
Learn more about DynamicFlood by visiting scalgo.com.

Heavy rainfall is increasingly causing localised flooding and flash floods, to which local authorities have only a few dozen minutes to respond. The FLOPRES (Flash Flood Prediction and Prevention System) project has enabled the pilot implementation and testing of modern solutions supporting both emergency response and long-term spatial planning.
This presentation will summarise the project’s key results and the lessons learnt from its pilot implementation. It will showcase solutions supporting day-to-day risk management – utilising a network of IoT sensors, hydrological and meteorological data, and real-time analysis – as well as tools to support spatial planning and the development of green retention infrastructure.
The presentation will highlight experiences from the project’s pilot implementation, the key challenges faced by local authorities, and recommendations that could be applied in other regions at risk of flash floods.