EIT Water HACKATHON Munich 2026

i.A. Dr. Sebastiana Roccuzzo

Umwelttechnik BW

Challenge: Stream:line: An Interactive Assessment Tool for Circular Water Management in Industry

Many manufacturing companies lack a clear, structured overview of their internal water flows: how water is used in production and utility processes, how quality changes, and where it leaves the site as wastewater, evaporation, product content or other losses. Data is often missing, limited to one meter per building, or scattered and poorly organised.

The challenge is to design an intuitive, web-based self‑assessment tool that helps companies create a first water‑flow map with minimal technical effort. Based on volumes, qualities, process requirements and desired outcomes, it should provide a transparent, neutral overview of potentially suitable technology categories.

The tool should also outline applicability, testing and data needs, main cost drivers, expected benefits and limitations, distinguishing established from emerging approaches. The need is urgent due to water scarcity, climate‑related droughts, rising operating costs, stricter wastewater requirements and growing expectations for robust, data‑driven resource and investment decisions.

Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Stephan Franz Lutter

WU Wien (Vienna University of Economics & Business)

Challenge: Reporting on water use by mining actors is insufficient

The clean‑energy transition requires huge amounts of metals for solar, wind and related technologies. Because recycling can only cover a small share of rapidly growing demand, most additional metals must come from new mining projects—even as climate change increases water scarcity in many regions.

Mines compete with agriculture, local communities and ecosystems for limited water resources. To answer questions like who is using how much water, what impacts arise, which uses should be prioritised, and whether metal supply can keep pace under growing scarcity, detailed site‑level water‑use data is essential.

Today, reporting by mining and production sites is limited, patchy, heterogeneous and inconsistent—due to missing obligations, poor understanding of on‑site water cycles and a lack of water‑accounting capacity. The challenge is to rethink how data, indicators and reporting frameworks could make water use by mining actors transparent, comparable and decision‑relevant for ESG, due diligence and low‑impact supply chains.

Dr. hab. Michael Nones

Institute of Geophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences

Challenge: Earth Observation for real‑time mapping of algae blooms in freshwater systems

Advances in sensor technology and open satellite data are turning Earth Observation into a key tool for tracking surface‑water dynamics worldwide. This challenge focuses on using Landsat data to detect algae blooms and changes in water‑surface temperature in lakes and rivers, taking into account system size and image resolution.

Participants are invited to explore relationships between temperature patterns and bloom development, including with machine‑learning approaches, and to experiment with forecasting future blooms and risk maps under different pre‑conditions (e.g. when certain temperature thresholds are exceeded for several consecutive days).

A key outcome should be replicable workflows and clear, accessible instructions so that non‑experts—such as water authorities—can reuse the methods, scale them to other basins and integrate them into day‑to‑day management using freely available satellite imagery.

Sebastian Guckelberger

Siemens AG

Challenge: One Water Intelligence: What Does It Take to Achieve Smart, Integrated Water Operations for a Resilient, Efficient and Sustainable Water Future?

Water and wastewater utilities face aging infrastructure, growing demand, climate‑change impacts (floods, droughts) and pressure to operate more efficiently, resiliently and sustainably. SCADA systems provide essential control, but truly optimising large, increasingly interconnected systems remains complex and often reactive and siloed.

With powerful AI/ML, widespread IoT sensing and the urgent need for climate‑resilient, circular water systems, there is a unique opportunity to move towards proactive, integrated “One Water” operations that reduce energy waste and water losses, support a digital workforce and ensure reliable services.

The challenge is to design concepts and approaches that turn data into actionable insights and operational workflows, including how recommendations are communicated to field teams. Solutions must respect real‑world constraints such as minimum pressures, tank reserves, pump operating windows, sewer capacity and overflow risks, water‑quality limits and safety‑critical control boundaries.

Dipl.-Ing. Christian Haas

I AM HYDRO

Professor Jeff Tuhtan

Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech)

Challenge: Telling fish from drifting debris in underwater monitoring videos

I AM HYDRO develops and operates AI‑supported underwater camera systems for monitoring fish passage facilities at hydropower plants and other river barriers. Cameras record continuously and trigger events via motion and image analysis. In real rivers, however, leaves, twigs, drifting debris, sediment plumes and air bubbles cause large numbers of false detections—especially after rainfall and high‑flow events, which is exactly when fish migration peaks.

A single station can generate thousands of events per day, most of them false triggers that must be reviewed manually. This severely limits how affordable and scalable camera‑based fish monitoring can become, even as regulations increasingly require proof that fish passages actually work.

The challenge is to explore concepts and approaches—building on modern computer vision and edge AI—that reliably distinguish fish from drifting debris and noise under real‑world river conditions, reducing false positives and making large‑scale, automated ecological monitoring feasible.

Priv.-Doz. Mag. Dr. Martin Schletterer

Challenge co-owner · TIWAG – Tiroler Wasserkraft AG

Assoc.-Prof. Priv.-Doz. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Christoph Hauer

Challenge co-owner · BOKU University

Challenge: Sustainable Hydropower

Hydropower is the world's largest single source of renewable electricity generation, accounting for over 50% of global renewable power production and about 15% of total global electricity production. The flexibility of hydropower and the possibility to store energy (storage and pumped-storage) make it a backbone of the Energy Transition and the European Green Deal.

The European Water Framework Directive stipulated the implementation of manifold measures, among e-flows, fishways and hydromorphological measures. TIWAG and BOKU University as challenge co-owners have long-term experience in developing sustainable hydropower, for example through the CD-laboratory for “Sediment research and management” (2017–2024).

Sustainability in hydropower refers to electricity generation using water resources while actively minimising environmental, social, and governance (ESG) impacts. Key dimensions of sustainability are: (i) environmental protection (protecting biodiversity, maintaining river flows, and using fish-friendly infrastructure like fish passes); (ii) social responsibility (respecting surrounding communities, protecting cultural heritage, and fairly compensating or consulting affected populations and Indigenous groups); and (iii) climate alignment (renewable production that supports broader climate goals as evaluated by frameworks like the Hydropower Sustainability Standard).

The challenge is to identify site-specific best-practice solutions for the construction and operation of hydropower plants, including digitalisation and monitoring strategies that enable adaptive management.

Univ. Prof. Dr. Michael Traugott

CEO · Sinsoma

Challenge: Fostering Biodiversity with Amphibian Ponds

Amphibians are keystone species in small freshwater habitats that support and rely on both aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity. However, they are increasingly threatened by habitat loss, fragmentation, climate change, and the invasive chytrid fungi. Creating, restoring, and monitoring suitable and sustainable breeding ponds remains a major conservation challenge.

Large-scale success requires the involvement of as many stakeholders as possible – citizens, landowners, local authorities, NGOs and the business community, particularly to establish habitats on private land. Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis provides a non-invasive monitoring tool that enables citizen scientists to detect amphibian species and the chytrid fungi from water samples they can easily collect.

Integrating eDNA analysis into a citizen science program would support targeted habitat restoration, improve biodiversity monitoring, and generate valuable data for landscape-scale conservation and rewilding effort.