Porto water utility director says the Water Pavilion should now explain how a city runs

Marta Pinto Coelho, a board member at Porto's water and energy utility, argues that the pipes, reservoirs, pumping stations and sensors beneath city streets work so well that people rarely understand them, and that what goes unseen is seldom protected. She recalls how the Water Pavilion, opened at Expo'98 in Lisbon and rebuilt in Porto, used interaction rather than display panels to teach about water. With drought, climate change, micropollutants and biodiversity now at stake, she proposes that its next step be to show how a city functions through water: supply routes, quality laboratories, repair crews and smart systems that anticipate leaks and extreme events.