Digitalisation has become one of the company’s strategic lines, vital for making progress in efficient and sustainable water management. In 2023, 17 million euros have been invested in digital transformation. Digitalisation of water and planning, challenges for the sector to promote a cascade effect of development The climate emergency and population pressure have increased the consequences of drought and highlighted the need to coordinate to protect water. According to the OECD, the world’s population will exceed nine billion by 2050 and UN projections indicate a 40% decline in available water resources by 2030. In other words, there are more people and less water available. Seven of the ten most water-stressed river basins in the European Union are in Spain, according to the European Environment Agency. Water stress has become a major issue, and to tackle it, the way forward is to improve efficiency and sustainability in water management. Efficiency implies sustained water planning and efficient infrastructure, incorporating new technologies and renewed from time to time. Investing in infrastructure ensures continuity of service, with lower operating and maintenance costs. The planning and strategy of the administrations must be accompanied by the efforts of the operators that manage the water service. Specialised companies can provide technology, innovation capacity and investment to offer specific solutions. In the specific case of Aqualia, digitalisation, which has become one of the company’s strategic lines of action, is vital for making progress in the efficient and sustainable management of water. So much so that in 2023 alone, its investment in digital transformation was 17 million euros. Increasing the performance of networks, detecting anomalous consumption in real time and reducing water losses due to leaks or warning when no consumption is recorded in homes inhabited by the elderly are some of the new features that are already being enjoyed thanks to new technologies. One example is in the city of Almeria, where Aqualia has been managing the service since 1993, a period in which the population has grown by 23% to 198,000 inhabitants. However, water consumption has been reduced by 47%, from 30 hm3 in 1993 to 16 hm3 in 2020. In that period, investments in the city’s water service have totalled nearly 85 million euros. Thanks to the implementation of projects for the early detection of leaks in the networks, unnecessary water losses and damage to the systems are avoided, something applicable to municipalities of any type. In cities such as Talavera de la Reina (Toledo), the digitalisation of the water service, initiated in 2010, has improved the efficiency of the network by 20 percentage points, which means a saving of approximately 1.8 million m3 per year, an amount of Driver for development and efficiency water that would fit in 720 Olympic swimming pools. Also municipalities with less than 5,000 inhabitants, such as Villasequilla (Toledo), already have 100% remote metering. In the Region of Murcia, the improvement of the infrastructures has achieved an average improvement in the performance of the supply networks of 7.5 percentage points in the municipalities where Aqualia manages the concession, which, during the year 2022 alone, made it possible to save more than 2.5 million cubic metres of water. The Toledo technology centre 54 I INNOVATION