Big Data & Water in the Netherlands

http://www.zdnet.com/big-data-deluge-how-dutch-water-is-trying-to-turn-the-tide-7000021385/

"According to Raymond Feron, programme director for Digital Delta at the Dutch Ministry of Water (the Rijkswaterstaat), the Dyke Data Service Centre database alone handles 2 petabytes (PB) of sensor data annually, while a typical water management project — of which there are up to 100 — can easily generate 10TB to 30TB of structured and unstructured information.

So it's a water system that just can't help generating data. The problem is there's little consistency in its collection and, because of the volumes, finding relevant data is difficult.

'This project combines and interacts with other projects that will generate this information. It is not in itself a data-generation programme. But what the water sector in the Netherlands will benefit from is being able to select the relevant data for your purpose quickly. I'm not looking for big data but for small, relevant data,' says Feron. 

'We're looking at public-private research and how large companies like IBM can work with small companies. We would like to see the water discipline interact better with other disciplines — so agriculture, environment, city planning, and traffic,' he adds."

Click here to listen to an interview with IBM's Ulisses Mello, IBM Research Director, in which he explains how Rio de Janeiro is becoming a Smarter city.

The scroll bar is positioned automatically at mins 6:30
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01d5p5k

How open data is transforming City services Steve Adler, IBM Information Strategist - Closing Keynote (+playlist)

H2.O – Pushing Past the Clichés Towards the Future of Water Innovation

by Janelle Heslop | September 17th 2013

Posted in Cleantech Events, Water

On September 10-11, Cleantech Group hosted its second annual Water Innovation Summit in Berkeley, California. Representatives from VC firms, corporates, startups, municipalities, and more gathered to debate issues ranging from repair drones in water pipes to financing infrastructure in emerging markets. Our strategy for the Summit was simple: define top challenges throughout the ‘water cycle’ and uncover opportunities to accelerate innovation at each step. However, what quickly became evident, as with many water-related conversations, is that the challenges are complex and


Read more:
http://blog.cleantech.com/sector-insights/water/h2-o-pushing-past-the-cliches-towards-the-future-of-water-innovation/?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRols6zOZKXonjHpfsX%2F7%2BQoULHr08Yy0EZ5VunJEUWy0IcBS9Q%2FcOedCQkZHblFnV0NS62%2FT7kNo6ELsolutions are interconnected.

Learning from Biology as to how innovation works in the natural word   http://www.infoq.com/presentations/managing-serendipity

Adaptation is useful, however Examptation is often faster to innovate

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIIE5cExaptations.shtml

Exaptations

An “exaptation” is just one example of a characteristic that evolved, but that isn’t considered an adaptation. Stephen Gould and Elizabeth Vrba¹proposed vocabulary to let biologists talk about features that are and are not adaptations:

• Adaptation—a feature produced by natural selection for its current function (such as echolocation in bats, right).


• Exaptation—a feature that performs a function but that was not produced by natural selection for its current use. Perhaps the feature was produced by natural selection for a function other than the one it currently performs and was then co-opted for its current function. For example, feathers might have originally arisen in the context of selection for insulation, and only later were they co-opted for flight. In this case, the general form of feathers is an adaptation for insulation and an exaptation for flight.

Genius of Biome - new start point = likely innovation

Genius of Biome  Using natures systems to inform human design.

By choosing a new start point the chances of innovation are great.

Game changing Green Infrastructure: recent case studies

  

 http://www.nature.org/about-us/the-case-for-green-infrastructure.pdf

Game changing with multiple benefits