As water systems face increasing pressure from climate change, emerging contaminants, aging infrastructure, and rising demand, the need for practical, scalable solutions has never been greater. At Western University, the WesternWater Centre (WWCTR) is responding to these challenges by bringing together researchers, industry partners, government agencies, and communities to advance collaborative, applied water research.
Under the leadership of its Director, Dr. Martha Dagnew, the Centre is building on a strong legacy of research excellence while sharpening its focus on developing smarter and more resilient water systems. The emphasis is not only on generating new knowledge, but on ensuring that knowledge can be translated into real-world solutions that improve water infrastructure and environmental outcomes.
“The focus is realizing that we have challenges, and they are not going to get better on their own,” says Dagnew. “It is important to work collaboratively and bring together expertise to solve them.”
From Research Excellence to Applied Water Innovation
At its core, the Centre brings together expertise spanning water quality, treatment technologies, resource recovery, climate resilience, and environmental protection. Its work is grounded in a One Water perspective that recognizes the interconnected nature of drinking water, wastewater, stormwater, surface water, and groundwater systems.
What distinguishes WWCTR from many other research centres is its deliberate focus on smart and resilient water systems supported by both deep scientific expertise and real-world implementation capacity. Rather than treating research as an end in itself, the Centre prioritizes solutions that can be tested, validated, and deployed in operational environments.
“Our researchers work on different aspects of water systems, but the common goal is making those systems smarter, more resilient, and better equipped to address future challenges,” explains Dagnew.
A defining strength of the Centre lies in its ability to bridge fundamental research and applied problem-solving. WWCTR supports work ranging from early-stage scientific discovery to field-scale demonstration, ensuring that innovations do not remain confined to the laboratory. Researchers actively engage with operational systems, pilot studies, and full-scale environments to understand how technologies perform under real conditions.
This applied orientation is particularly important in water research, where performance can vary significantly between controlled experiments and real-world implementation. By working across scales, researchers are able to identify challenges early and refine solutions to meet practical requirements.
Large-scale infrastructure and field-based research play a central role in this approach. WWCTR is known for leveraging environments that closely reflect real operating conditions, allowing technologies to be evaluated in contexts that mirror full-scale deployment. These capabilities are essential for advancing solutions that are both technically sound and operationally viable.
Among the Centre’s key assets is the London Wastewater Facility, a demonstration-scale research facility located at the City of London’s wastewater treatment infrastructure and managed by Western University under the leadership of Dr. Dagnew. While the facility itself is a major platform for applied research, its development is closely tied to the Ontario Water Consortium (OWC), which played a foundational role in mobilizing the original infrastructure investments that enabled its creation. Importantly, OWC’s contribution extends beyond capital support. Over the past 15 years, OWC has acted as a key convenor and ecosystem builder, connecting Western with industry, government, and utility partners across Ontario and helping to shape a collaborative model for water innovation. This long-standing partnership has been instrumental in positioning Western as a leader in applied, industry-relevant water research. Today, the facility continues to operate within this broader ecosystem, providing a critical environment for testing and validating technologies under real operating conditions while benefiting from the partnership networks and collaborative frameworks that OWC helped establish.
In addition to the London facility, WWCTR is expanding its capabilities through new and emerging infrastructure. This includes the development of a Core Water Facility designed to support advanced analytical research for both academic and industry users, as well as efforts to establish enhanced capacity for emerging contaminants research. Together, these investments strengthen the Centre’s ability to support complex water challenges at multiple scales.
Partnerships Driving Impact and Future Growth
The Centre’s infrastructure is complemented by its strong partnerships across industry, government, and the broader innovation ecosystem. WWCTR works closely with technology developers, municipalities, utilities, consultants, and government agencies to address real-world water challenges. These collaborations are structured around specific problems rather than generic research themes, ensuring that projects remain focused, relevant, and impactful.
A key aspect of this model is aligning projects with researchers who already possess deep expertise in the relevant area. This approach increases both the efficiency and quality of research outcomes, while ensuring that partners are supported by teams with a strong track record in the subject matter.
“We want projects to go to researchers who already have expertise in that area,” says Dagnew. “There is always discovery, but partners need confidence that they are working with people who understand the challenge.”
WWCTR also emphasizes team-based research, bringing together multiple experts across disciplines to address complex water challenges. This collaborative structure enables more comprehensive problem-solving and supports innovation that spans technical, environmental, and operational dimensions. Research engineers, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students all contribute to this ecosystem, providing both depth and flexibility in project delivery.
Over time, this model has helped establish strong and sustained relationships with partners who value both the Centre’s technical capabilities and its commitment to delivering practical outcomes. The ability to consistently move from concept to validation remains one of WWCTR’s most important strengths.
Looking ahead, Dr. Dagnew sees significant opportunity to expand the Centre’s impact by deepening interdisciplinary collaboration. While WWCTR has strong foundations in engineering, future growth will increasingly involve closer integration with fields such as environmental science, health, and business. Emerging areas such as One Health, environmental impacts on human systems, lifecycle assessment, and international collaboration are expected to play a growing role.
Equally important is strengthening collaboration within the research community itself. By connecting expertise across disciplines and research groups, the Centre aims to tackle larger and more complex challenges that cannot be addressed in isolation.
“The potential is enormous,” says Dagnew. “We have exceptional researchers with decades of experience. My role is to bring people together and help create the collaborations needed to solve bigger problems and make a meaningful impact.”
As the Centre continues to evolve, its focus remains clear: advancing collaborative, applied research that delivers practical solutions for water systems. Through a combination of research excellence, large-scale infrastructure, and strong partnerships, WWCTR is helping to shape the future of smarter and more resilient water systems in Ontario and beyond.