Today’s 22 March is World Water Day, initiated by the United Nations since 1992. This day reminds us annually of the uniqueness of water being the most essential resource of all life. In 2022, the World Water Day is held under the motto "Groundwater: Making the Invisible Visible": "Groundwater: the invisible treasure".

Being an indispensable resource, the ground water is subject to pollution by human activity and increasingly exposed to the effects of climate change. Many people are not aware of this problem, which is why this day should raise social and political awareness of the importance and value of our valuable ground water.

The management of the water resources is an important subject for Thales as well. Due to the Thales commitment to ensure a recycling rate for non-hazardous waste of 75% until 2023, the waste volume per person could be reduced by 20% in the past two years. With regard to the water resource management, Thales places importance on low water consumption by applying optimised long-term management planning and refraining from activities in regions that are short on water.

Cybersecurity for the water sector

The continuous population growth leads to an increased demand for water as a vital resource, and issues great challenges to water management organisations with regard to preservation and management. For this, the sector uses a wealth of digital information to make proficient decisions that in turn cover the demand in the respective regions, complying with the environmental and economic regulations.

Each interruption of the availability of clean drinking water can have catastrophic effects on the local health and economy, which is why the sector is a potential target of cyber attacks on vital infrastructures. Cyber defence must therefore be part of the digital transformation strategy of each water management organisation – not only to ensure the integrity and availability of clean drinking water, but also to protect sensitive or private data. In the context of the Vormetric Transparent Encryption, Thales therefore relies on advanced data-at-rest encryption, access control and audit logging for data access and thus makes an important contribution to the protection of the essential resource.

Thales technologies for monitoring the oceans

In order to protect the water, Thales technologies support the monitoring of the oceans: For example, Thales Alenia Space built the Sentinel-3 satellites, and supplied the Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) and the Synthetic Aperture Radar Altimeter (SRAL) for the satellites. The satellites now provide data on the sea level, the temperature and the colour of the oceans, and are equipped with four essential instruments to monitor changes in the oceans:

 

Thales Ocean and Land Colour Imager (OLCI)

The OLCI precisely captures the ocean's surface colour, which serves the monitoring of the water quality and the discovery of environmental pollution.

Synthetic Aperture Radar Altimeter (SRAL)

SRAL measures the sea level, decisive wave heights, wind speeds and the sea ice's elevation and thickness. The collected data from the radar altimeter can be used to derive maps of the sea level and topography.

 Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR)

SLSTR captures the surface temperatures of the land and sea surfaces. The instrument measures in nine spectral bands with an accuracy of up to 0.3 degree centigrade, and allows climate researchers to create and adjust climate and weather models.

Microwave Radiometer (MWR)

The MWR submits information on atmospheric water vapour and cloud water content to the earth. Furthermore, it provides emission and humidity data of the land surfaces, and is used to characterise ice surfaces.