The design of environmental engineering systems, such as those in the water and wastewater sector, is currently based on a wide range of regulations, including DIN and DWA standards, as well as EU directives. However, existing software solutions often only partially implement these specifications, typically being designed as closed, heterogeneous, standalone systems. This results in high maintenance requirements, limited compatibility between software solutions and reduced flexibility when adapting to new legal requirements, such as those set out in the European Urban Wastewater Directive (EU) 2024/3019, which requires climate neutrality and energy efficiency.
The project therefore aims to address these challenges by developing an open, modular and interoperable software platform. This platform will enable engineers to create their own applications for designing and dimensioning environmental engineering systems without requiring extensive programming knowledge. This will be achieved using a visual, dataflow-oriented development concept (flow-based programming), in which calculations, simulations and analyses are represented by graphically connected functional blocks. A central library will provide modules for calculation, simulation, data import, visualisation and reporting, while an integrated data management system will ensure consistency, reusability and efficient data exchange between different applications.
The planned development environment will provide a flexible tool that simplifies the creation and adaptation of technical software solutions, thereby contributing to the digitisation and improvement in efficiency of the environmental engineering sector.
