QleanUP at a glance

Urban water systems are exposed to traditional contaminants and emerging pollutants, including PFAS, microplastics, pharmaceuticals, nutrients, heavy metals and others. These pollutants can enter water through industrial activities, agricultural runoff, wastewater discharges and urban drainage. Floods, droughts and intense rainfall can alter pollutant concentrations or transport contaminants rapidly into rivers, groundwater and other water sources.

Water quality can consequently change very quickly, while conventional monitoring often depends on samples being collected and transported to laboratories for analysis. Pesticide contamination, combined with climate pressures and increasingly interconnected urban water systems, reinforces the need for monitoring systems that can identify pollution earlier and explain how contaminants move through the water cycle.

The QleanUP project responds to this challenge by developing a water-quality management platform that combines:

• Real-time sensors for pollutants such as nutrients and heavy metals.
• Specialised techniques for quantifying PFAS and microplastics.
• AI-supported soft sensors for substances that are difficult or expensive to measure continuously.
• Digital twins to predict how pollution moves through urban water systems.
• Decision-support tools to help water managers respond earlier.
• Citizen science and stakeholder involvement to strengthen monitoring and water-management plans

The project’s solutions are being tested at five European demonstration sites to assess their adaptability and potential for replication under different conditions and environments.

In Valencia, Spain, for instance, water from rivers and groundwater can be affected by agricultural and industrial runoff. QleanUP is testing soft sensors as early-warning tools for pesticides and nutrients before they reach the drinking-water treatment plant. This demonstrates how predictive monitoring can help operators respond to changing source-water quality.

By connecting monitoring data with predictive tools and water-management decisions, QleanUP aims to help authorities understand emerging risks, respond to contamination earlier and move from reactive monitoring towards more proactive water-quality management.