Supporting the learning and sharing of technology knowledge in the water sector: A multiagent system approach

Debate is increasingly dealing, nowadays, with the roles of new and traditional technology in order to raise the knowledge of working agents and boost an effective community development. In the twentieth century, capital-intensive technologies have been pervasive and have impacted large populated areas. However, because of social, financial and environmental concerns, new experiences have grown locally, at the little to medium-scale, with low impacts and interesting results. Local-based technologies look important because they rely on the skills and knowledge of local populations, although difficult to raise as formal and shared methodologies. Also, in many cases they succeed where traditional technologies fail. The present paper reports the experience of a EU-funded research project, in its attempt to raise water-sector technology knowledge through a IT-based cross-disciplinary, cross-scale, multi-agent learning environment.