K-water Report : Water, Nature and Humankind

K-water Report
K-water is leading
the digital transformation
of water management in Korea
By 2030, K-water aims to lead the digital transformation of water management by applying digital technology to all areas of water circulation, including water resources, water supply, water energy, and Smart City to provide people with clean water and water data safely and conveniently. The ultimate goal of this initiative is to provide better water-related data and services to the public.
Written by Choi Haeng-jwa Source : K-water

Water Digital

K-water strives to build an advanced water management system using digital technology for the entire water circulation area encompassing water management, water energy, and Smart City.

Establishing a digital-based water management ecosystem

K-water is leading the digital transformation of water management to provide people with clean wazter and water data safely and conveniently. Under the slogan ‘K-water digital vision 2030’, K-water aims to apply digital technology to all areas of water circulation, including water resources, water supply, water energy, and Smart City by 2030.
First of all, K-water is making efforts in earnest to achieve people-centered safe water management and create a digital industrial ecosystem through the digital twin-based water management platform. On March 11, 2022, K-water launched the ‘Digital GARAM⁺’, which is the digital twin-based water management platform for dams, river basins, and streams, that realizes a three-dimensional virtual world of the Seomjingang River basin, among others. Users can simulate physical objects such as topography, dams, and rivers into the virtual world, and imitate various conditions such as weather, water quality, and sluice status to perform the optimal analysis for predicting and assessing the water level fluctuation of a dam and stream and its ripple effects including damage, and be used for decision-making about the operation of a dam for rainfall forecasts during flood season.
Through this, K-water can reinforce flood response capabilities by transforming the system into basin-centered, digital technology-based flood response system, and predict water level changes of a dam and downstream situation following dam discharge in order to respond to a threat in advance and prevent fundamental damages. It is expected that we can manage water in a more efficient and safer way by identifying water management-related data such as dam operations and weather information to prevent water disasters and support decision-making with accuracy.
Based on the achievements of the pilot establishment of the platform for the Seomjingang River basin, K-water plans to utilize it in various fields such as flood and water quality by continuously refining the prediction model through pilot operations.
In addition, K-water is building a real-time accident detection system using AI technology. This system is a deep learning-based technology that learns from water flow and pressure data and immediately detects and warns of potential abnormalities such as sudden fluctuations in responding to accidents quickly. It is expected that this will minimize inconveniences such as disruptions to water supply and road closures due to damages of water pipes and allow prompt initial response.
K-water is also working on a digital twin-based dam safety management platform as part of the Ministry of Environment’s ‘Smart Dam Safety Management’ Project. This project aims to digitalize the dam safety management system by introducing cutting-edge ICT technology and establish an efficient disaster prevention and response system. It will be implemented for 37 dams by 2025 to realize real-time intelligent surveillance, perform drone-based safety inspections, and launch and operate a digital twin-based platform.

K-water Digital Vision 2030

Providing various digital water-related services

K-water endeavors to offer various digital services required by the public including provision of water data. Its major examples are the water information portal called ‘My Water’, which provides various water data and professional knowledge, and ‘wateRound’, which is a digital water platform that supports water-related digital solution development and transactions.
Launched in January 2016, the ‘My Water’ portal provides some 1,300 contents and 15,000 data such as △ water information in my region, △ customized real-time water information, △ water encyclopedia, and so on. In 2023, K-water plans to provide more water information by expanding data connection and sharing with domestic water-related institutions, conduct correlation analysis, and add big data-related visual contents such as word cloud. It also plans to discover new contents related to water and economy, and water and culture that can be used by people by connecting with API data in the U.S. and Europe.
Launched in March 2022, the ‘wateRound’ is an open business platform that allows various participants from corporates, start-ups, and academies to obtain water data easily so as to develop digital solutions for solving water issues quickly and then provide the related services at home and abroad. It is a cloud-based platform that is currently providing 34 solution services including the intelligent water leak detection system.
K-water plans to gradually expand digital water solutions that can be applied around the world through public contests and other procedures to discover outperforming companies in order to solve water issues in cooperation with various participants who have creative ideas and technologies. Furthermore, it will cooperate with NAVER to jointly discover promising innovative companies in the domestic water sector and support cloud infrastructure, technology consulting, marketing, and market development to help them develop into a global leading company.

Central Situation Room for Water Management

Disclosing information transparently as public data

K-water discloses information desired by citizens as data to the public. By establishing the Data Lake in the public sector, it strives to discover and disclose people-oriented high-quality public data and manage its quality. The disclosure of public data means that public institutions provide information to users and authorize them to use the provided information for social contribution and commercial purposes.
K-water recorded the highest number of public data usage(18 million cases per year) owing to the largest number of its public data(575 cases → 1,266 cases) among institutions under the Ministry of Environment in 2021. It also has increased various SMEs and government App services such as AI Water Purification Robot, Smart Farm, and Happy Bicycle Sharing, using the above disclosed public data. Consequently, K-water achieved the highest grade(excellent) in the operation status evaluation of public data provision by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security for three consecutive years from 2019 to 2021.
Meanwhile, K-water held the ‘Digital Innovation Relay Forum’ through six sessions from May to September of last year. Based on the slogan of ‘Opening the way with data,’ it promoted and established the direction and formation of a bond of sympathy for K-water digital transformation based on diverse topics such as digital government and strategy, data convergence and service, platform and value improvement, digital business, digital security, and digital talents and capabilities.
Accordingly, through its concerted efforts, K-water is contributing to improving people’s quality of life and developing the water industry as a leader in global digital water management through successful implementation of digital transformation as well as advancing water data provision services.

2022 Big Data Contest
Pipe Damage Accident Detection Situation Panel