The benchmark simulation modelling platform – Areas of recent development and extension

As the formal work of the IWA Task Group on Benchmarking of Control Strategies for Wastewater treatment Plants (WWTPs) has come to an end, it is essential to continue to disseminate the intense research in this field that is still carried out. In 2013 and 2014, all authors of the IWA Scientific and Technical Report on benchmarking came together to provide their insights, highlighting areas where knowledge was still deficient and where new opportunities were emerging, as well as to propose potential avenues for future development and application of the general benchmarking framework and its associated tools. The focus was on the topics of temporal and spatial extensions, process modifications within the WWTP, improved realism of models, control strategy extensions, the potential for new evaluation tools within the existing benchmark system and the need for full-scale validation. Four years later, it is clear that many of these goals have already been accomplished and the toolbox of Benchmark Simulations Models has been greatly extended and enhanced. The focus of this paper is to provide a number of examples of these recent extensions. As always, the different BSM softwares are freely available for the benefit of the global research community