Circular water management and smart water management reconstruct the industry ecology

The global water treatment industry is transitioning from a single engineering operation and maintenance model to a comprehensive service model that combines circular economy and digital intelligent operation and maintenance. At the level of circular water management, countries are gradually abandoning the "pollution control end of pipe thinking" and comprehensively promoting the recycling of water resources. The treated municipal sewage is widely used for agricultural irrigation, industrial production, groundwater supply, and urban landscape water use. The industrial sector continues to compress the proportion of fresh water use, and the water resource recycling rate has been greatly improved. Sludge treatment has also shifted from simple landfilling and incineration to resource utilization such as anaerobic digestion to produce biogas, organic fertilizer preparation, and building materials utilization, achieving dual benefits of solid waste reduction and energy recovery.

At the level of smart water management, big data, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and digital twin technologies are fully integrated into the entire water treatment process. Global leading enterprises and mainstream municipal water projects have achieved real-time water quality monitoring, intelligent equipment operation and maintenance, automatic energy consumption control, and precise fault warning, effectively solving the pain points of high operation and maintenance costs, large water quality fluctuations, and serious energy waste in traditional water treatment. At the same time, the digital platform realizes the full integration of water data, helping the government and enterprises to accurately control water resource consumption and pollution emissions, greatly improving the level of refined management in the industry. In addition, the activity of industry capital continues to increase, with a global venture capital scale of over 480 million US dollars for water technology startups in 2023. Capital continues to empower the implementation of new technologies and models.