Designing the next generation of urban water systems
Coming soon! 🔜
The highly anticipated ‘Battle of the Water Networks’ is back with a new challenge for the water community. This competition will be hosted at the 4th International Joint Conference on Water Distribution Systems Analysis and Computing and Control in the Water Industry (WDSA/CCWI 2026), taking place in Paphos, Cyprus, from May 18-21, 2026.
This competition embodies the core mission of Water-Futures and the theme for WDSA/CCWI 2026: “Designing the next generation of urban water (and wastewater) systems.”
The objective is to design and operate a water distribution system over a long-term horizon under deep uncertainty, with interventions applied in stages. For the first time, this challenge features a staged-design approach, unobservable and unknown uncertainties, and incorporates elements of policymaking and artificial intelligence. The solutions will be assessed using a transparent and inspectable open-source evaluation framework.
Stay updated 📣
Want to be notified when the competition launches?
Send an email to: battlewaterfutures@kwrwater.nl with the subject “Competition Updates”.
We’ll share the calendar with you and keep you informed as soon as:
- Competition guidelines are published.
- Evaluation modules are released.
- Submission deadlines are approaching.
Got a question?
Just reach out on our contact page and we’ll get back to you!
This competition is organized by a dedicated subteam of the Water-Futures project, including external collaborators. Discover the full Water-Futures team and our broader initiatives on our website.
Water-Futures has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Grant Agreement No. 951424).