From microbiological testing to risk management: Adasa brings digital microbiology to the Spain Smart Water Summit 2026

2026-10-01

From measuring microbiology to managing risk: Adasa brings digital microbiology to the Spain Smart Water Summit 2026

 
Montserrat Batlle, Innovation Specialist at Adasa, has demonstrated how the digitalisation of microbiological monitoring enables E. coli and enterococci results to be transformed into integrated information for risk management and decision-making.
 
“Imagine trying to understand a Beethoven symphony by hearing just one note every minute.” With this analogy, Montserrat Batlle, Innovation Specialist at Adasa, opened her presentation “From the laboratory to digital microbiology” at the Spain Smart Water Summit 2026.
 
The comparison highlights one of the main challenges of microbiological water monitoring: a single measurement provides information about a specific moment in time, but it is much more difficult to understand what is happening between one sample and the next. What changes when microbiology can become a digital information flow integrated into operations?
 
From measurement to decision-making
The digitalisation of water does not end when a sensor generates a data point. For Adasa, the process comprises four stages: measuring, integrating, interpreting and acting.
First, it is necessary to obtain reliable information from the physical world. Next, this must be integrated with communication systems, platforms and control systems. Then, the data must be interpreted using software, analytics or models. And, finally, it must be converted into useful information for operations and decision-making.
 
However, applying this logic to the field of microbiology presents a particular challenge. Physical or chemical parameters have long been monitored using sensors installed directly in the field. Microbiology, on the other hand, has traditionally been much more closely linked to sampling, analysis and laboratory results.
The challenge is, therefore, to ensure that this microbiological information can also form part of digital water management processes.
 
 
 
When a microbiological test becomes a digital data point
This is precisely the function of aquaBio, Adasa’s solution for automated microbiological monitoring. The equipment converts a microbiological test into a digital result, quantifying E. coli or enterococci in MPN/100 mL and generating programmable and transmissible information. This enables microbiological measurements to be integrated with control systems, alarms and other sources of operational information.
 
The change is significant: it marks a shift from relying solely on occasional checks to being able to incorporate microbiological trends into routine management processes.
 
aquaBio is also designed to operate autonomously with periodic maintenance, making it easy to use in real-world facilities and environments. Among the evidence presented by Batlle are its independent verification under an ETV scheme and the validation carried out by Mekorot for the continuous monitoring of microbiological parameters.
 
From knowing whether the water meets standards to understanding how risk evolves
The value of having more continuous information does not lie simply in generating more data. It enables us to ask new questions. Not just: ‘What is the microbiological quality of the water in this sample?’, but also: ‘Is it changing?’, ‘How is a contamination developing?’ or ‘What response should we put in place?’
 
Batlle has demonstrated how this capability can be incorporated into risk management across different water uses: bathing water, reclaimed water and drinking water. In these contexts, the aim is not to replace established control procedures, but to add information that helps strengthen surveillance and response capacity.
 
From the laboratory to digital microbiology
The digitalisation of microbiological monitoring is not simply a matter of automating a test. The real change occurs when the result is no longer isolated and can be linked to the rest of the available information to understand what is happening in the system.
 
Measuring more continuously allows trends to be observed. Integrating the data allows it to be contextualised. Interpreting it allows for a better understanding of the risk. And having that information at hand facilitates decision-making.