In a world facing an unprecedented water crisis, where rainfall patterns are becoming unpredictable and underground reserves are declining at alarming rates, the Heart Water – Fluidra project represents a concrete manifestation of innovation and hope. On the northern coast of California, one of the regions most vulnerable to prolonged drought and saline intrusion, this initiative seeks to transform a global challenge into a tangible opportunity: converting existing urban infrastructure into a system that generates clean and resilient water.
Every year, millions of cubic meters of water are lost as surface runoff in industrial areas. This project reverses that equation. By capturing and purifying rainwater over an area of 149,612 ft², it recovers approximately 932,083 gallons per year, equivalent to 3,528 m³ annually or 35,283 m³ in a decade, enough to supply the annual consumption of more than 30 Californian households. Following the principles of VWBA 2.0 , this water is used for internal cleaning and irrigation of green areas, reducing dependence on aquifers and municipal networks while preventing the discharge of contaminated stormwater.
The purpose of Heart Water goes beyond efficiency; its vision is to lead a profound transformation in urban water management. Where impermeable surfaces and waste once existed, there now emerges a decentralized water infrastructure that captures, treats, and reuses every drop with digital traceability and independent verification. This model redefines the relationship between cities, industry, and water, proving that water resilience can be designed, measured, and scaled.
The project brings together a collaborative ecosystem that includes Heart Water as the operator, Aqua Positive as the technical structurer and traceability platform, SCS Global as the verification entity, and suppliers of advanced filtration and automation technologies. Together, they build an auditable, replicable model aligned with Water Positive objectives and adhered to the principles of additionality, traceability, and intentionality.
With a narrative of change and verifiable impact, Heart Water – Fluidra demonstrates that bold solutions can transform a global challenge into a regenerative opportunity, driving the water economy toward a fairer, smarter, and more sustainable future.
The water environment of Carlsbad, in San Diego County, reflects the pressures typical of semi-arid coastal regions along the Pacific: increasingly irregular rainfall, aquifer overexploitation, saline intrusion, and increasingly stringent regulations on water use and reuse. These conditions have increased supply costs and industrial vulnerability to consumption restrictions or temporary municipal water cuts. Against this backdrop, Heart Water – Fluidra emerges as both a technological and strategic opportunity to transform a structural problem into a tangible solution for water resilience.
The project leverages the available industrial surface (149,612 ft²) to collect and treat rainwater, transforming each rainfall event into a measurable source of volumetric benefit. Using a multibarrier system consisting of prefiltration, activated carbon, microfiltration, and UV disinfection, the project ensures the quality and safety of the recovered water, which is then used for internal cleaning and green area irrigation. This approach integrates technical efficiency and regulatory compliance under VWBA 2.0, aligning operations with the principles of additionality, traceability, and intentionality that underpin the Water Positive standard.
The project’s impact unfolds across different time horizons. In the short term, it replaces ~3,528 m³/year of network water, reducing operational costs and emissions associated with pumping and transportation. In the medium term, it strengthens production continuity through water source diversification and real-time digital traceability. In the long term, it establishes a replicable model for industrial complexes, logistics centers, and corporate campuses in water-stressed areas, demonstrating the economic and environmental viability of decentralized reuse.
The structural causes aggravating scarcity, such as fragmented water governance, dependence on imported sources, and slow adoption of reuse technologies, reinforce the need for initiatives like this. Heart Water proposes a paradigm shift that combines technological innovation with shared governance. The alliance between Heart Water (operator), Aqua Positive (technical structurer), and SCS Global (independent verifier) ensures process credibility and comparability of results. Suppliers of filtration, instrumentation, and automation complete the operational ecosystem, contributing technical experience and certification.
This model is designed for forward-thinking companies with strong sustainability objectives and ESG strategies seeking to anticipate future regulations and differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive market. Leading such a solution not only provides compliance and efficiency but also reputation, visibility, and the ability to communicate verifiable results. In a global context where water defines competitiveness, acting now means ensuring continuity, protecting social license, and creating lasting environmental and economic value.
The project’s implementation follows a structured technical sequence integrating diagnosis, construction, operation, and verification, ensuring control and efficiency at every stage. In the diagnostic phase, hydrological and collection analyses are performed to establish the baseline and design criteria through precipitation studies, gutter sizing, and optimal storage capacity calculations for peak events. Water quality and saline intrusion risk variables are incorporated, adjusting treatment protocols to meet health and industrial safety standards.
During the execution phase, the infrastructure combines harvesting, storage, multibarrier treatment, and digital monitoring, integrating gutters that channel water to level-controlled tanks with overflow protection. Treatment includes prefiltration, activated carbon, microfiltration, and UV disinfection, chosen after comparing alternatives such as ultrafiltration membranes or constructed wetlands. This hybrid gray and digital technology was selected for its low energy requirements, high efficiency, and compliance with California’s non-potable reuse regulations. The system is monitored using flow meters at capture, treatment, and final use stages, and a SCADA network with cloud backup ensures continuous traceability and data storage, facilitating external verification under VWBA 2.0.
Operational and environmental risks identified include hydrological variability, electrical failures, cross-contamination, or social rejection of new water sources. To mitigate these, redundant systems, automatic pressure and quality alarms, contingency plans, and shared governance between the operator, auditor, and local authority are implemented. Climate resilience is ensured through oversized storage, remote monitoring, and predictive maintenance. Specific protocols prevent critical failures such as biological contamination, supply shortages, or saline intrusion, backed by annual water safety audits.
This technical solution addresses the structural problem of scarcity and overexploitation of traditional sources. Its justification lies in replacing up to 3,528 m³/year of network water, offering a reliable, measurable reuse system. In the context of the coastal Carlsbad basin, this option is most suitable due to its compliance with state reuse regulations and contribution to Water Positive principles, ensuring additionality, traceability, and intentionality. Expected benefits include recovering 35,283 m³ over 10 years, reducing emissions from pumping and transport, and decreasing environmental impact from contaminated runoff. Socially, it promotes local technical employment, enhances industrial water security, and supports community environmental education.
Economically, the installation will reduce water and maintenance costs, increase operational resilience, and position the company within international ESG performance standards. Its modular design and proven effectiveness make it highly replicable in regions with similar climatic conditions, especially in the southwestern United States, Mexico, and the Mediterranean coast. Partnerships between private sector actors, verification bodies, and local authorities will help scale the solution, strengthening its competitiveness and direct contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals.
Replicability and Scalability of SDGs: The model is replicable in industrial roofs, logistics centers, and corporate campuses in arid/semi-arid regions. Requirements: non-potable reuse framework, available catchment surfaces, monitoring and auditing capacity. Its competitiveness is based on the verified cost per m³, reduction of operational risk, and alignment with global frameworks, facilitating adoption through public–private and corporate partnerships.
The implementation of Heart Water – Fluidra will be developed under a phased and adaptive approach, allowing progress through stages with rigorous technical control and intermediate validations. This framework ensures precision, traceability, and long-term resilience, combining technological innovation, environmental management, and collaborative governance.
Phase 1 – Diagnosis and Technical Design: This first stage includes topographic surveying, site hydrological characterization, and baseline definition. Precipitation and runoff studies, rainwater quality analyses, and hydraulic sizing of tanks and gutters are conducted. The results are digitally modeled to determine nominal collection capacity (~3,528 m³/year) and expected operational performance, while also establishing initial sampling and monitoring protocols. This diagnosis constitutes the technical reference for tracking performance indicators before and after the project.
Phase 2 – Construction and Installation: With the design approved, civil works and equipment installation are executed. The system combines food-grade gutters, pressurized tanks, and a multibarrier treatment unit (prefilter, activated carbon, microfiltration, and UV radiation), chosen for its high efficiency, low energy consumption, and compatibility with California’s non-potable reuse regulations. The work includes flow, pressure, turbidity, and pH sensors integrated into an IoT–SCADA network with cloud storage. This phase is completed in approximately six months, including hydraulic testing and water quality validation.
Phase 3 – Commissioning and Validation: Over three months, the system undergoes functional verification and technical validation under the VWBA 2.0 A-3 methodology. Instrumentation is calibrated, quality sampling routines are established (certified laboratory), and captured and reused volumes are verified. The first performance reports are compared against the baseline, generating quantifiable evidence of savings and efficiency.
Phase 4 – Continuous Operation: Once validated, the system enters permanent operation. It includes real-time monitoring, quarterly preventive maintenance, and biannual performance audits. Key parameters (pH, turbidity, conductivity, flow, and reused volume) are recorded, transmitted to the cloud, and integrated into the Aqua Positive traceability platform. Each capture and use event is georeferenced, ensuring physical and digital traceability from the water’s origin to its destination.
Phase 5 – External Verification and Continuous Improvement: At the end of the first operational year, SCS Global and the local authority review results through field audits, laboratory analyses, and SCADA data review. The with-project vs. without-project comparison confirms additionality and permanence of benefits. The collected data feed improvements in calibration, operation, and efficiency. This process is repeated annually, consolidating external validation of the water benefit.
System governance is organized among Heart Water (operation and maintenance), Aqua Positive (structuring, digital monitoring, and reporting), SCS Global (external verification), and the local water authority (RWQCB Region 9). Each actor has defined roles and responsibilities under agreements governing use and quality control of reused water. A preventive maintenance plan (monthly inspection, semiannual cleaning, annual filter replacement) and corrective maintenance (review in case of flow or quality deviations) are established.
Traceability is ensured through the SCADA–IoT platform, which generates automatic alerts for quality or pressure deviations, monthly performance reports, and auditable logs of every operation. Performance indicators (m³ captured, treatment efficiency, energy consumption, operational incidents) are documented and validated based on the VWBA–WQBA methodology.
Continuous improvement is sustained by a permanent cycle of technical review, data analysis, and technological updating. The system incorporates feedback from audits, evaluates new sensors, and updates software to maximize efficiency and reduce costs. This ensures the permanence of benefits over time, consolidating an adaptive, verifiable model aligned with Water Positive principles and corporate sustainability goals.
Heart Water – Fluidra constitutes an industrial-scale rainwater reuse intervention that combines hydraulic engineering, digital control, and independent verification. The project consists of the collection, treatment, and reuse of rainwater from a surface area of 149,612 ft², with an approximate annual capacity of 3,528 m³, equivalent to 35,283 m³ over ten years of operation.
The system applies hybrid multibarrier technology (prefilter, activated carbon, microfiltration, and UV radiation) with SCADA digital monitoring and IoT instrumentation, flowmeters and sensors enabling real-time tracking of quality parameters (pH, turbidity, conductivity, E. coli) and quantity.
It complies with the standards of the California Water Code, EPA Guidelines for Water Reuse, and ISO 14046 and VWBA 2.0, ensuring additionality, traceability, and intentionality.
The relevance of this solution lies in its ability to reduce pressure on the coastal aquifers of northern San Diego, highly vulnerable to saline intrusion and structural recharge deficits, while mitigating polluted runoff losses to coastal lagoons. Compared to the baseline situation (total dependence on municipal water, absence of rainwater recovery, and untreated urban discharges), the project introduces a local and decentralized alternative source, providing operational and environmental resilience. This intervention is particularly suitable for Carlsbad’s semi-arid urban context, where rainfall is scarce but concentrated, allowing each event to generate additional volumetric benefits.
Expected results include the annual recovery of 3,528 m³ of water and improved water quality through the removal of solids, turbidity, and coliforms. In addition, an estimated reduction of 2.1 tCO₂/year in emissions is expected due to lower energy use for pumping and transporting potable water. The project also strengthens local biodiversity by preventing pollutant runoff into wetlands and generates social benefits through technical employment and water management training.
Strategically, the project contributes to the organization’s Water Positive roadmap by demonstrating circular and measurable operation aligned with the SBTi for Water, NPWI, and ESRS E3 frameworks. It offers tangible ESG benefits: improving social license to operate, strengthening corporate reputation, ensuring environmental compliance, and positioning itself as a benchmark for innovation in urban water management. Commercially, it creates value through the generation of auditable and monetizable water benefit credits.
Due to its modular, scalable, and verifiable design, the solution is replicable in industrial parks, logistics centers, or urban complexes in arid or semi-arid regions. Its technical success conditions include available collection surfaces, a non-potable reuse regulatory framework, and institutional commitment to traceability. Replication can be strengthened through alliances between industrial operators, local governments, and verification platforms, promoting a decentralized network of Water Positive projects.
The final impact of the project is reflected in its contribution to the local water balance, the reduction of pressure on coastal aquifers, and resilience to climate change. Socially, it creates jobs, fosters water culture, and ensures sustainable resource access. For investors, clients, and society, it represents a clear signal of the transition toward a regenerative economy, where each urban infrastructure becomes a source of water, well-being, and sustainability.
