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In less developed regions, such as rural areas and small towns in Africa, water distribution remains a significant challenge. While NGOs have been successfully supporting communities for decades by drilling wells, installing pumps, and sometimes building water towers, distributing water across a network on the surface is often difficult.
In many rural and underserved regions, including parts of Africa, wells and pumps may exist while developing and operating a reliable distribution network remains difficult. Local initiatives can lack engineering capacity, trained personnel, suitable technology, and affordable tools for operating such infrastructure sustainably.


Local initiatives that take on these projects frequently encounter a situation where operating the system manually becomes unsustainable, requiring constant attention. Qualified personnel are scarce, and suitable technology to support automated or semi-automated operation is either unavailable under local constraints or too expensive.
This practical problem is an important motivation for AOWIS. AOWIS aims to make the engineering knowledge, technical foundations, software, and operational methods needed to develop and operate water infrastructure openly available and practically usable, while supporting local training and cooperation with experienced organizations and operators.
 
This is where AOWIS aims to contribute: by providing an open standard for designing, deploying, and managing water and agricultural infrastructure in such environments. AOWIS supports both the planning phase—helping initiatives evaluate and design systems based on regional conditions such as topography—and the operational phase, including system monitoring, control, and maintenance.
 
In addition, AOWIS aims to support the training of local technicians and to collaborate closely with experienced NGOs and local initiatives that already operate and maintain such systems, in order to improve sustainability and reduce operational burden.
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{{Header box
{{Header box
  | title = Why an Open Standard is Needed
  | title = Why AOWIS is Needed
  | color = turquoise
  | color = turquoise
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  | body =  
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[[File:Cooperation.jpg|400px|frameless|right]]
[[File:Cooperation.jpg|400px|frameless|right]]


In environments where infrastructure is built over decades by many different actors using solutions from different vendors and manufacturers, systems become fragmented, forcing operators to manage multiple incompatible tools and workflows while making daily operation, maintenance, expansion, and staff training increasingly complex and costly.
Water and irrigation infrastructure must often be planned, built, expanded, and operated over many decades. In some places, existing infrastructure has become fragmented across different vendors, technologies, tools, and engineering approaches. In others, communities and organizations are building coherent water infrastructure for the first time and may have limited access to engineering capacity, technical guidance, suitable software, or established operational practices.
 
This fragmentation often results in vendor lock-in, where systems depend on specific tools, expertise, or suppliers that may not remain available over the full lifecycle of the infrastructure.


An open standard provides a shared technical foundation that enables interoperability and ensures systems can be maintained and extended independently of any single product or provider.
AOWIS provides a shared open foundation for both situations. It brings together technical standards, engineering knowledge, software, reference implementations, operational guidance, and training to support the development of water infrastructure from initial planning and design through construction, operation, maintenance, and future expansion.


AOWIS defines such a foundation for water and agricultural infrastructure under real-world operational constraints.
The aim is to make infrastructure understandable, interoperable, maintainable, and extensible throughout its lifecycle, while reducing dependence on individual vendors, products, suppliers, or scarce specialist expertise.
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}}


<div class="hbox-row">
<div class="hbox-row">
{{Header box
{{Header box
  | title = Operation Conditions of AOWIS
  | title = Operating Conditions
  | color = lightblue
  | color = lightblue
  | body =
  | body =
[[File:Village.jpg|250px|frameless|right]]
[[File:Village.jpg|250px|frameless|right]]


AOWIS is designed to operate under the real-world conditions faced by local initiatives. These include, among others:
AOWIS is designed for environments where water infrastructure must remain useful and safe despite difficult technical and operational conditions. This is particularly important in rural and underserved regions, where reliable power, continuous connectivity, modern equipment, trained personnel, and specialist support cannot always be assumed.


* unreliable power supply
Typical conditions include:
* intermittent connectivity
 
* diverse or aging equipment
* unreliable or limited power supply
* limited availability of trained personnel
* intermittent or unavailable connectivity
* the need for safety and autonomous operation
* heterogeneous or aging equipment
* limited availability of trained technical personnel
* limited access to specialist engineering support
* the need for safe local operation without continuous remote supervision


AOWIS enables systems that continue to function safely and reliably, even under degraded or adverse conditions.
}}
}}


{{Header box
{{Header box
  | title = Facing the Challenges
  | title = Design Principles
  | color = lightblue
  | color = lightblue
  | body =  
  | body =
AOWIS addresses these operational challenges through the following principles:
 
AOWIS addresses these conditions through principles including:


* human-in-the-loop control
* '''offline-first operation'''
* offline-first operation
* '''safe fallback behaviour'''
* safe fallback behavior
* '''human-in-the-loop control'''
* modular and extensible logic
* '''local autonomous operation'''
* shared infrastructure models
* '''modular and extensible system design'''
* training programs for local operators
* '''shared infrastructure models'''
* transparent governance
* '''open interfaces and accessible technical documentation'''


The goal is to make essential systems '''robust, maintainable, and locally operable'''.
The goal is to make essential water infrastructure '''robust, understandable, maintainable, and locally operable''', including where conventional assumptions about connectivity, technical resources, and institutional support do not hold.
}}
}}
</div>
</div>
{{Header box
| title = Software & Downloads
| color = green
| body =
[[File:GUI ky4 3d.png|400px|frameless|right]]
AOWIS includes an open-source software platform for '''modelling, simulating, visualizing, monitoring, and operating water infrastructure'''.
The current software includes a network editor and monitoring interface, hydraulic and water-quality simulation using [[External:EPANET:Main Page|EPANET]], geographic maps and terrain visualization, and support for local and standalone operation. Development of the AOWIS Controller is progressing toward a complete open-source SCADA and operational management platform..
'''[https://download.aowis.org Download the AOWIS Controller (development snapshot)]'''
* [https://github.com/aowis-org Source code on GitHub]
* [[#Roadmap|Software development roadmap]]
}}


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* [[AOWIS:Wiki|This Wiki]]
* [[AOWIS:Wiki|This Wiki]]


These pages explain how to read, use, and contribute to the standard.
These pages explain the foundations of AOWIS, how the AOWIS Standard is structured, and how to use and contribute to the project and its documentation.
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* '''REQ-MEAS, REQ-MEAS-UI:''' [[Measurement:Units|Unit System Requirements]]
* '''REQ-MEAS, REQ-MEAS-UI:''' [[Measurement:Units|Unit System Requirements]]
* '''REQ-MEAS-UNI:''' [[Measurement:Unit_Identifiers|Unit Identifiers]]
* '''REQ-MEAS-UNI:''' [[Measurement:Canonical_Units|Canonical Units]]
}}
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  | color = purple
  | color = purple
  | body =  
  | body =  
AOWIS documentation is organized into dedicated namespaces with clearly separated purposes.
* [[Motivation:Main_Page|Motivation]] – Real-world problems, constraints, operating conditions, and practical needs that AOWIS is intended to address.
 
* [[Standard:Main_Page|Standard]] – The normative core of AOWIS. Defines requirements and definitions specifying what AOWIS-compliant systems MUST, SHOULD, or MAY do.
The [[Standard:Main_Page|Standard]] namespace contains the normative requirements that define AOWIS compliance. The other namespaces provide the motivation, concepts, engineering knowledge, architectures, operational models, implementation guidance, reference designs, training material, and supporting information needed to understand, implement, and operate AOWIS systems.
* [[Concepts:Main_Page|Concepts]] – Core concepts, design principles, terminology, and system-level ideas used throughout AOWIS.
* [[Architecture:Main_Page|Architecture]] – Overall system structure, including controllers, components, layers, interfaces, communication, data flows, responsibilities, and interactions between parts of an AOWIS system.
* [[Infrastructure:Main_Page|Infrastructure]] – Physical infrastructure, technologies, systems, and components that AOWIS is used to plan, design, model, build, monitor, control, operate, maintain, and extend.
* [[Measurement:Main_Page|Measurement]] – Physical quantities, units, measurement semantics, sensor and manual measurements, calibration, uncertainty, derived values, and the representation of measured information within AOWIS.
* [[Data:Main_Page|Data]] – Data models, schemas, identifiers, interchange formats, logging, synchronization, persistence, and data lifecycle rules.
* [[Operations:Main_Page|Operations]] – Monitoring, control, operational procedures, state management, fallback behaviour, decision-making, maintenance activities, and other processes involved in operating infrastructure.
* [[Modules:Main_Page|Modules]] – Reusable functional components that provide specific capabilities within AOWIS while integrating with the common system architecture and data model.
* [[Reference:Main_Page|Reference]] – Concrete implementations, engineering designs, example deployments, reference configurations, and validated patterns showing practical ways AOWIS systems can be built and used.
* [[Databases:Main_Page|Databases]] – Structured knowledge bases, registries, catalogues, and other organized information used by AOWIS and its implementations.
* [[Governance:Main_Page|Governance]] – Conformance, certification, review, auditing, versioning, licensing, trust, and organizational processes governing AOWIS and its development.
* [[Training:Main_Page|Training]] – Educational and practical material for operators, technicians, engineers, developers, contributors, communities, and others working with AOWIS and the infrastructure it supports.
* [[Regions:Main_Page|Regions]] – Place-specific information about geographic areas, including environmental, hydrological, climatic, socioeconomic, geological, infrastructure, water-resource, and field-project context.
* [[Geology:Main_Page|Geology]] – Geological, geomorphological, hydrogeological, hydrogeochemical, and geophysical knowledge relevant to water resources, groundwater occurrence and movement, subsurface investigation, borehole siting, and the understanding of local and regional geological conditions.


* [[Motivation:Main_Page|Motivation]] – Causal justification of design requirements based on real-world failures, constraints, and operational realities.
* [[External:Main_Page|External]] – External standards, projects, technologies, tools, organizations, and systems relevant to AOWIS, its interoperability, or the domains in which it is used.
* [[Standard:Main_Page|Standard]] – The normative core of AOWIS. Defines requirements and definitions specifying what AOWIS-compliant systems MUST, SHOULD, or MAY do.
* [[Concepts:Main_Page|Concepts]] – Core ideas, philosophy, rationale, and contextual understanding that explain AOWIS without prescribing a specific implementation.
* [[Architecture:Main_Page|Architecture]] – High-level system structure, including controllers, layers, communication, data flows, and their interactions.
* [[Infrastructure:Main_Page|Infrastructure]] – Physical technologies, systems, and components used in AOWIS deployments. Infrastructure pages describe classes of physical systems rather than specific implementation blueprints.
* [[Measurement:Main_Page|Measurement]] – Definition and handling of sensor data, manual measurements, calibration, uncertainty, and derived physical values.
* [[Data:Main_Page|Data]] – Data models, schemas, logging structures, synchronization formats, and data lifecycle rules.
* [[Operations:Main_Page|Operations]] – Runtime behavior, control logic, state transitions, fallback behavior, and decision-making during system operation.
* [[Modules:Main_Page|Modules]] – Reusable functional extensions that provide domain-specific capabilities within AOWIS.
* [[Reference:Main_Page|Reference]] – Non-normative concrete implementations, engineering blueprints, example deployments, and validated design patterns showing specific ways AOWIS systems may be built.
* [[Databases:Main_Page|Databases]] – Federated knowledge bases and structured supporting information used by AOWIS implementations.
* [[Governance:Main_Page|Governance]] – Certification, compliance, auditing, trust, licensing, versioning, and organizational governance.
* [[Training:Main_Page|Training]] – Operator education, technical training, field guidance, documentation literacy, and capacity building.
* [[External:Main_Page|External]] – External projects, standards, technologies, and systems that relate to or influence AOWIS.


For a full overview, see the [[AOWIS:Table_of_Contents|Table of Contents]].
For a full overview, see the [[AOWIS:Table_of_Contents|Table of Contents]].
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[[File:Boring.jpg|250px|frameless|right]]
== Roadmap ==


AOWIS has progressed beyond its initial conceptual phase. A substantial software foundation for modelling, simulating, visualizing, and eventually operating water infrastructure is under active development.
AOWIS has progressed beyond its initial conceptual phase. A substantial software foundation for modelling, simulating, visualizing, and eventually operating water infrastructure is under active development.


The long-term objective is a complete open-source '''SCADA, infrastructure modelling, simulation, and operational management platform''' for water and agricultural infrastructure. Planning, simulation, live monitoring, control, maintenance, and historical data should ultimately operate on the same shared infrastructure model.
The current software stack already includes:
 
EPANET currently provides the primary hydraulic and water-quality simulation engine, but AOWIS is not designed as an EPANET frontend. EPANET is one solver integrated into a broader, solver-independent AOWIS architecture.
 
=== Current Software State ===
 
The current AOWIS software stack already includes several major components:


; '''Shared infrastructure model'''
; '''Shared infrastructure model'''
: The AOWIS server model provides a common representation of water infrastructure independently of a particular simulator, user interface, or field controller. Pumps, pipes, junctions, reservoirs, tanks, valves, controls, measurements, and related infrastructure can therefore be represented consistently throughout the system.
: A common, solver-independent representation of water infrastructure used throughout the AOWIS software stack.
: [https://github.com/aowis-org/AOWIS-SERVER-MODEL GitHub AOWIS-SERVER-MODEL]


; '''Hydraulic and water-quality simulation'''
; '''Hydraulic and water-quality simulation'''
: A dedicated EPANET integration layer translates between the AOWIS model and EPANET and executes hydraulic and water-quality simulations. The integration supports network import and export, hydraulic behaviour, controls and rules, pumps and valves, water-quality analysis, diagnostics, simulation reports, and other EPANET functionality.
: EPANET integration for hydraulic and water-quality simulation, network import/export, controls, rules, diagnostics, and simulation results. Integration of '''EPANET-MSX''' is also being developed.
:
: [https://github.com/aowis-org/AOWIS-SERVER-EPANET GitHub AOWIS-SERVER-EPANET]
: Integration of '''EPANET-MSX''' is being developed to extend this to advanced multi-species water-quality and chemical reaction modelling.


; '''Network editor and monitoring interface'''
; '''Network editor and monitoring interface'''
: The AOWIS graphical application provides tools for creating, importing, inspecting, simulating, and visualizing water networks. This includes geographic map views, terrain-aware 3D visualization, network monitoring views, simulation configuration, and analysis of simulation results.
: A graphical application for creating, inspecting, simulating, and visualizing water networks, including geographic maps and terrain-aware 3D visualization.
: [https://github.com/aowis-org/AOWIS-SERVER-GUI GitHub AOWIS-SERVER-GUI]


; '''Geographic and terrain infrastructure'''
; '''Geographic and terrain infrastructure'''
: AOWIS includes mapping and terrain services for geographic placement, elevation data, basemaps, terrain visualization, and local caching. This allows hydraulic infrastructure to be evaluated together with the real terrain on which it is or may be constructed.
: Mapping, elevation data, basemaps, terrain visualization, geographic placement, and local caching.
: [https://github.com/aowis-org/AOWIS-SERVER-MAP GitHub AOWIS-SERVER-MAP]


; '''Local and standalone operation'''
; '''Local and standalone operation'''
: AOWIS is being designed so that deployments do not depend on continuous Internet or cloud connectivity. Server, map, simulation, and user-interface components can be combined for local deployments, supporting the offline-first requirements of the project.
: Support for deployments that do not depend on continuous Internet or cloud connectivity.
: [https://github.com/aowis-org/AOWIS-SERVER-Standalone GitHub AOWIS-SERVER-Standalone]


The software remains under active development and should not yet be considered a complete production SCADA system.
The software remains under active development and should not yet be considered a complete production SCADA system.


=== Towards a Full SCADA System ===
The next major stage is to connect the existing modelling and simulation environment to '''real infrastructure in continuous operation'''.


The next major development stage is to connect the existing infrastructure model and simulation environment to '''real infrastructure in continuous operation'''.
The AOWIS software platform is intended to develop into a complete open-source SCADA, infrastructure modelling, simulation, and operational management platform in which planning, live monitoring, control, historical data, maintenance, and simulation operate on the same shared infrastructure model.


The same network that is used for planning and hydraulic simulation should eventually represent the live system:
This includes telemetry, sensors and actuators, alarms and historian functions, local and remote control, automation with safe fallback behaviour, and model-assisted operation using measured and simulated system behaviour.


* sensor measurements update the state of modelled infrastructure
EPANET currently provides the primary hydraulic and water-quality simulation engine, but AOWIS is not designed solely as an EPANET frontend. EPANET is one solver integrated into a broader, solver-independent architecture.
* pumps, valves, tanks, reservoirs, wells, treatment systems, and electrical systems can be monitored in real time
* historical measurements and operational events are recorded
* operators can inspect current and historical system behaviour
* alarms and abnormal conditions are detected and presented clearly
* hydraulic and water-quality models can be compared with observed conditions
* authorized control commands can be issued to field equipment
* automation can operate within explicitly defined safety limits
* local systems continue operating safely when communication with higher-level systems is unavailable


=== Telemetry and Field Communication ===
The long-term objective is to connect the complete infrastructure lifecycle:


Initial AOWIS deployments are intended to use technologies such as:
'''survey and planning → engineering and simulation → construction → commissioning → monitoring → control → maintenance → analysis → expansion'''


* [[Architecture:Protocols:LoRa/LoRaWAN]] for low-bandwidth long-range field communication
'''[[AOWIS:Roadmap|Read the full roadmap →]]'''
* [[Architecture:Protocols:MQTT]] for telemetry and message transport
}}


The architecture should remain open to additional field and industrial protocols as required.
{{Header box
 
| title = Community & Participation
Future work includes:
| color = blue
 
| body =
* standardized representation of sensors, actuators, controllers, and communication endpoints
* ingestion of continuous and event-based telemetry
* manual measurements alongside automated measurements
* reliable timestamping and measurement quality information
* buffering during communication outages
* synchronization after connectivity is restored
* device health and communication-state monitoring
 
=== Monitoring, Alarms, and Historian ===
 
AOWIS is intended to develop from its current simulation and visualization capabilities into a complete operational monitoring environment.
 
Planned capabilities include:
 
* live network status
* time-series storage and visualization
* alarm and event management
* configurable alarm thresholds and priorities
* acknowledgement and audit trails
* equipment status and fault reporting
* operational dashboards
* maintenance information
* comparison of measured and simulated behaviour
* long-term analysis of water demand, pressure, flow, quality, energy use, and equipment performance
 
=== Control and Automation ===
 
AOWIS ultimately aims to support both manual and automatic control of infrastructure.
 
This includes:
 
* pumps
* valves and actuators
* storage tanks and water towers
* wells and boreholes
* treatment systems
* irrigation systems
* electrical and solar-energy infrastructure
 
Automation must follow the core AOWIS principles of '''human-in-the-loop control, safe fallback behaviour, local autonomy, and operation under degraded conditions'''.
 
Safety-critical protection should not depend solely on central software or network connectivity. Where appropriate, fundamental protections should remain implemented locally using simple and independently functioning electrical, mechanical, or controller-based systems.
 
=== Model-Assisted Operation ===
 
A major objective is to combine traditional SCADA functionality with the hydraulic and infrastructure model already present in AOWIS.
 
The live system may eventually use simulation and modelling to support:
 
* expected-versus-measured pressure and flow comparison
* leak and abnormal-consumption detection
* detection of sensor or equipment faults
* estimation of conditions at locations without sensors
* tank and reservoir management
* pump scheduling
* energy optimization
* water-quality tracking
* evaluation of proposed operator actions before execution
* demand forecasting
* planning of network expansion and infrastructure changes
 
This creates a path from a conventional SCADA display toward a continuously updated operational model of the physical water system.
 
=== Solver-Independent Development ===
 
Although EPANET is currently the primary hydraulic solver, hydraulic calculations and solver-specific assumptions should remain isolated from the common AOWIS infrastructure model.
 
This allows AOWIS to integrate additional simulators, optimization systems, agricultural models, or specialized engineering tools in the future without requiring the physical infrastructure model to be redesigned around a particular solver.


=== Infrastructure and Water Treatment ===
AOWIS is an open project, and participation is welcome from anyone interested in its goals — including engineers, developers, NGOs, operators, researchers, technicians, students, and people with practical experience in water and irrigation infrastructure.


Development is also expanding beyond distribution networks themselves.
For '''discussion, planning, questions, documentation, infrastructure, field projects, standards, research, and other forms of participation''', AOWIS uses '''Matrix'''.


AOWIS should be capable of representing and supporting the planning and operation of complete water systems, including:
The AOWIS Matrix server has several '''public spaces and rooms''' for different topics. Join those relevant to your interests. For general questions or help finding the right place, start here:


* wells and boreholes
'''[https://matrix.to/#/#support:aowis.org AOWIS Support — #support:aowis.org]'''
* pumping stations
* reservoirs and water towers
* distribution networks
* drinking-water treatment
* desalination
* disinfection
* irrigation
* electrical and solar-energy systems


See [[Infrastructure:Main_Page|Infrastructure]] for documentation of physical infrastructure technologies and [[Reference:Main_Page|Reference]] for concrete engineering designs and example implementations.
Any Matrix account can join public AOWIS spaces and rooms.


=== Hardware ===
If you are new to Matrix:


Hardware development and research will continue alongside the software platform.
* [https://matrix.org/try-matrix/ Learn about Matrix and create an account]
* [https://element.io/ Element] — Matrix client for web, desktop, and mobile
* [https://fluffychat.im/ FluffyChat] — simple Matrix client for several platforms


Priorities include:
The same Matrix account can be used with different clients.


* robust water-level, pressure, flow, and water-quality sensing
; '''AOWIS Matrix Accounts'''
* monitoring of solar and battery systems
* locally serviceable field controllers
* pump and valve interfaces
* electrical protection
* emergency shutdown systems
* equipment suitable for heat, dust, unreliable power, and difficult logistics
* designs that can be repaired using locally available skills and components where practical


AOWIS does not require all hardware to be developed specifically for the project. Existing equipment should be integrated wherever it can satisfy the required interfaces, reliability, safety, and maintainability requirements.
Participants may also request an account on the AOWIS Matrix homeserver, giving them an ID such as '''@name:aowis.org'''.


=== Long-Term Direction ===
To reduce automated registrations and abuse, accounts are created on request. Please send a short introduction telling us who you are, what interests you about AOWIS, and where you would like to participate: [[File:Mtx.png|120px|frameless|alt=Email address for requesting an AOWIS Matrix account]]


The intended result is an integrated platform covering the complete lifecycle of water infrastructure:
; '''Software Development'''


'''survey and planning → engineering and simulation → construction → commissioning → monitoring → control → maintenance → analysis → expansion'''
Software development happens on '''GitHub'''. Bug reports, pull requests, source-code contributions, and repository-specific development discussions should use the appropriate repository.


The same open infrastructure model should connect these stages instead of requiring separate, incompatible systems for engineering, SCADA, maintenance, mapping, and simulation.
'''[https://github.com/aowis-org AOWIS on GitHub]'''


AOWIS aims to make capabilities that are traditionally distributed across expensive and proprietary engineering, GIS, SCADA, telemetry, and asset-management products available through an open and interoperable platform suitable for both small local installations and larger water systems.
Matrix is for the broader AOWIS community and participation that does not naturally belong in a GitHub repository.
}}
}}


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* clear certification processes   
* clear certification processes   
* stable versioning   
* stable versioning   
* long‑term protection of the standard 
* long-term stewardship and continuity


See: [[Governance:Main_Page|Governance]].
See: [[Governance:Main_Page|Governance]].
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[[File:Afriticgroup.webp|250px|frameless|center|link=https://afriticgroup.com/]]
[[File:Afriticgroup.webp|250px|frameless|center|link=https://afriticgroup.com/]]
}}
}}
''AOWIS is an open, evolving standard. Contributions are welcome. For contact, please visit us on [https://github.com/aowis-org GitHub]''

Latest revision as of 19:28, 29 September 2026

AOWIS – Afritic Open Water Infrastructure System

AOWIS (Afritic Open Water Infrastructure System) is an open system for planning, designing, modelling, building, operating, maintaining, and extending safe and reliable water and irrigation infrastructure throughout its lifecycle.

AOWIS brings together open technical standards, open-source software, shared infrastructure models, engineering methods, reference implementations, operational guidance, and training. It provides a common foundation for modelling, simulation, monitoring, control, automation, data exchange, and day-to-day operation.

It is intended for communities, utilities, organizations, engineers, and others involved in water infrastructure, while remaining practical under difficult conditions such as intermittent connectivity, unreliable power, limited technical resources, and the need for local autonomous operation.

Motivation

In many rural and underserved regions, including parts of Africa, wells and pumps may exist while developing and operating a reliable distribution network remains difficult. Local initiatives can lack engineering capacity, trained personnel, suitable technology, and affordable tools for operating such infrastructure sustainably.

This practical problem is an important motivation for AOWIS. AOWIS aims to make the engineering knowledge, technical foundations, software, and operational methods needed to develop and operate water infrastructure openly available and practically usable, while supporting local training and cooperation with experienced organizations and operators.

Why AOWIS is Needed

Water and irrigation infrastructure must often be planned, built, expanded, and operated over many decades. In some places, existing infrastructure has become fragmented across different vendors, technologies, tools, and engineering approaches. In others, communities and organizations are building coherent water infrastructure for the first time and may have limited access to engineering capacity, technical guidance, suitable software, or established operational practices.

AOWIS provides a shared open foundation for both situations. It brings together technical standards, engineering knowledge, software, reference implementations, operational guidance, and training to support the development of water infrastructure from initial planning and design through construction, operation, maintenance, and future expansion.

The aim is to make infrastructure understandable, interoperable, maintainable, and extensible throughout its lifecycle, while reducing dependence on individual vendors, products, suppliers, or scarce specialist expertise.

Operating Conditions

AOWIS is designed for environments where water infrastructure must remain useful and safe despite difficult technical and operational conditions. This is particularly important in rural and underserved regions, where reliable power, continuous connectivity, modern equipment, trained personnel, and specialist support cannot always be assumed.

Typical conditions include:

  • unreliable or limited power supply
  • intermittent or unavailable connectivity
  • heterogeneous or aging equipment
  • limited availability of trained technical personnel
  • limited access to specialist engineering support
  • the need for safe local operation without continuous remote supervision
Design Principles

AOWIS addresses these conditions through principles including:

  • offline-first operation
  • safe fallback behaviour
  • human-in-the-loop control
  • local autonomous operation
  • modular and extensible system design
  • shared infrastructure models
  • open interfaces and accessible technical documentation

The goal is to make essential water infrastructure robust, understandable, maintainable, and locally operable, including where conventional assumptions about connectivity, technical resources, and institutional support do not hold.

Software & Downloads

AOWIS includes an open-source software platform for modelling, simulating, visualizing, monitoring, and operating water infrastructure.

The current software includes a network editor and monitoring interface, hydraulic and water-quality simulation using EPANET, geographic maps and terrain visualization, and support for local and standalone operation. Development of the AOWIS Controller is progressing toward a complete open-source SCADA and operational management platform..

Download the AOWIS Controller (development snapshot)

Start Here

If you are new to AOWIS, begin with:

These pages explain the foundations of AOWIS, how the AOWIS Standard is structured, and how to use and contribute to the project and its documentation.

List of Requirement Pages

This index lists AOWIS pages that define normative requirements (MUST/SHOULD/MAY statements) and conformance rules.

Dev Rules — specs for writing and maintaining AOWIS

Technical Standard — system behavior and data models

AOWIS Documentation Structure
  • Motivation – Real-world problems, constraints, operating conditions, and practical needs that AOWIS is intended to address.
  • Standard – The normative core of AOWIS. Defines requirements and definitions specifying what AOWIS-compliant systems MUST, SHOULD, or MAY do.
  • Concepts – Core concepts, design principles, terminology, and system-level ideas used throughout AOWIS.
  • Architecture – Overall system structure, including controllers, components, layers, interfaces, communication, data flows, responsibilities, and interactions between parts of an AOWIS system.
  • Infrastructure – Physical infrastructure, technologies, systems, and components that AOWIS is used to plan, design, model, build, monitor, control, operate, maintain, and extend.
  • Measurement – Physical quantities, units, measurement semantics, sensor and manual measurements, calibration, uncertainty, derived values, and the representation of measured information within AOWIS.
  • Data – Data models, schemas, identifiers, interchange formats, logging, synchronization, persistence, and data lifecycle rules.
  • Operations – Monitoring, control, operational procedures, state management, fallback behaviour, decision-making, maintenance activities, and other processes involved in operating infrastructure.
  • Modules – Reusable functional components that provide specific capabilities within AOWIS while integrating with the common system architecture and data model.
  • Reference – Concrete implementations, engineering designs, example deployments, reference configurations, and validated patterns showing practical ways AOWIS systems can be built and used.
  • Databases – Structured knowledge bases, registries, catalogues, and other organized information used by AOWIS and its implementations.
  • Governance – Conformance, certification, review, auditing, versioning, licensing, trust, and organizational processes governing AOWIS and its development.
  • Training – Educational and practical material for operators, technicians, engineers, developers, contributors, communities, and others working with AOWIS and the infrastructure it supports.
  • Regions – Place-specific information about geographic areas, including environmental, hydrological, climatic, socioeconomic, geological, infrastructure, water-resource, and field-project context.
  • Geology – Geological, geomorphological, hydrogeological, hydrogeochemical, and geophysical knowledge relevant to water resources, groundwater occurrence and movement, subsurface investigation, borehole siting, and the understanding of local and regional geological conditions.
  • External – External standards, projects, technologies, tools, organizations, and systems relevant to AOWIS, its interoperability, or the domains in which it is used.

For a full overview, see the Table of Contents.

Roadmap

AOWIS has progressed beyond its initial conceptual phase. A substantial software foundation for modelling, simulating, visualizing, and eventually operating water infrastructure is under active development.

The current software stack already includes:

Shared infrastructure model
A common, solver-independent representation of water infrastructure used throughout the AOWIS software stack.
GitHub AOWIS-SERVER-MODEL
Hydraulic and water-quality simulation
EPANET integration for hydraulic and water-quality simulation, network import/export, controls, rules, diagnostics, and simulation results. Integration of EPANET-MSX is also being developed.
GitHub AOWIS-SERVER-EPANET
Network editor and monitoring interface
A graphical application for creating, inspecting, simulating, and visualizing water networks, including geographic maps and terrain-aware 3D visualization.
GitHub AOWIS-SERVER-GUI
Geographic and terrain infrastructure
Mapping, elevation data, basemaps, terrain visualization, geographic placement, and local caching.
GitHub AOWIS-SERVER-MAP
Local and standalone operation
Support for deployments that do not depend on continuous Internet or cloud connectivity.
GitHub AOWIS-SERVER-Standalone

The software remains under active development and should not yet be considered a complete production SCADA system.

The next major stage is to connect the existing modelling and simulation environment to real infrastructure in continuous operation.

The AOWIS software platform is intended to develop into a complete open-source SCADA, infrastructure modelling, simulation, and operational management platform in which planning, live monitoring, control, historical data, maintenance, and simulation operate on the same shared infrastructure model.

This includes telemetry, sensors and actuators, alarms and historian functions, local and remote control, automation with safe fallback behaviour, and model-assisted operation using measured and simulated system behaviour.

EPANET currently provides the primary hydraulic and water-quality simulation engine, but AOWIS is not designed solely as an EPANET frontend. EPANET is one solver integrated into a broader, solver-independent architecture.

The long-term objective is to connect the complete infrastructure lifecycle:

survey and planning → engineering and simulation → construction → commissioning → monitoring → control → maintenance → analysis → expansion

Read the full roadmap →

Community & Participation

AOWIS is an open project, and participation is welcome from anyone interested in its goals — including engineers, developers, NGOs, operators, researchers, technicians, students, and people with practical experience in water and irrigation infrastructure.

For discussion, planning, questions, documentation, infrastructure, field projects, standards, research, and other forms of participation, AOWIS uses Matrix.

The AOWIS Matrix server has several public spaces and rooms for different topics. Join those relevant to your interests. For general questions or help finding the right place, start here:

AOWIS Support — #support:aowis.org

Any Matrix account can join public AOWIS spaces and rooms.

If you are new to Matrix:

The same Matrix account can be used with different clients.

AOWIS Matrix Accounts

Participants may also request an account on the AOWIS Matrix homeserver, giving them an ID such as @name:aowis.org.

To reduce automated registrations and abuse, accounts are created on request. Please send a short introduction telling us who you are, what interests you about AOWIS, and where you would like to participate: Email address for requesting an AOWIS Matrix account

Software Development

Software development happens on GitHub. Bug reports, pull requests, source-code contributions, and repository-specific development discussions should use the appropriate repository.

AOWIS on GitHub

Matrix is for the broader AOWIS community and participation that does not naturally belong in a GitHub repository.

Governance & Legitimacy

AOWIS includes a transparent governance model to ensure:

  • open participation
  • clear certification processes
  • stable versioning
  • long-term stewardship and continuity

See: Governance.

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