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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 [...]

Wastewater treatment depends on the stability of complex microbial communities that drive biological processes and ensure effective solids separation. At the centre of this system is the balance between filamentous bacteria and floc-forming bacteria within activated sludge. When this balance is disrupted, plants can experience sludge bulking, reduced settling efficiency, and declining treatment performance. Traditionally, [...]

Each spring in Ontario, the thaw tests watershed systems in ways that are often difficult to predict. Snowpack melts, frozen soils shift rapidly into saturation, and river levels rise unevenly across basins. In some watersheds, conditions move from stable to strained within hours. For conservation authorities and municipal operators, these weeks are operationally intense and [...]

Wastewater disinfection is essential for protecting public health and downstream water quality, but conventional control approaches such as flow-pacing struggle to reflect real-world operating conditions. In practice, disinfectant demand varies with changes in hydraulics, water quality, and operational conditions, which are not fully captured by flow alone. This can lead to inefficient dosing, unnecessary chemical [...]

Municipal wastewater treatment is under pressure like never before. Flows fluctuate unpredictably, pollutant loads are higher, and communities increasingly demand water reuse solutions. Utilities must maintain consistent treatment performance while reducing energy and chemical use. Traditional membrane systems often struggle under these conditions, particularly when faced with sudden surges or variable solids content. Fibracast's FibrePlate [...]

In the industrial innovation lifecycle, there is a notorious gap between a successful lab experiment and a market-ready product. This "Valley of Death" is the stage where many promising clean-tech innovations fail due to the logistical, technical, and financial hurdles of scaling up. For IntensiCarb™, a revolutionary vacuum-enhanced anaerobic digestion technology, navigating this gap required [...]

Across Canada, municipalities face the same hidden vulnerability: ageing wastewater infrastructure that has never been comprehensively inspected. Few assets illustrate this more clearly than large-diameter trunk sanitary sewers - the buried arteries of wastewater systems that often haven’t been assessed since installation. Without condition data, utilities are forced into reactive maintenance cycles. Failures lead to [...]