IWA Project Innovation Awards

The awards are open to individuals, companies, organisations, governmental bodies, or any combination of the above, whether or not the organisation is a member of IWA. For each region, an international panel of judges drawn from IWA membership is used to evaluate the submissions against a set of criteria that focus on excellence and innovation in project conception and results.

The awards are given in the following categories: applied research; planning; design; operations/management; small projects.

The winning projects have in their own unique ways contributed significantly across the world to the advancement of technology, the quality of the environment and water, and the efficiency of managing it.

The 2008 global winners included:

• Brown and Caldwell for a biosolids treatment process that upgrades the sludge to highly nutritious fertilizer, substituting chemical fertilizer and relieving overused landfills in Georgia, USA (Superior Achievement Award and winner in the category “Applied Research”).
• Donohue & Associates for a global first in disposing wastewater biosolids in Illinois, USA that turns this “waste” into a reusable, marketable glass product (winner in the category “Design”).
• DWAF/IMESA and Emanti Management for rolling out an electronic water quality management system across all municipalities in South Africa (winner in the category “Operation”).
• PUB Singapore for re-plumbing Singapore’s sewage systems deep into the ground (winner in the category “Planning”).
• Joe Brown & Mark Sobsey (University of North Carolina) for easy household-scale filtration for Cambodia (winner in the category “Small Projects”).

The biennial Award was initiated in 2006, with the first global award presented at the World Water Congress in Beijing. The winners from the three regional heats in North America, Europe and East Asia & Pacific advanced to the global competition. The awards will be presented on September 10th, 2008 at the IWA World Water Congress and Exhibition in Vienna.