Meet Tiago Carvalho, a pioneer at the UPWATER project. As an environmental engineer and consultant at TARH – Earth, Environment and Water Resources, Tiago plays a key role in connecting scientific innovation with real-world application. With expertise in groundwater and aquifer management, he ensures that UPWATER’s findings are not only scientifically robust, but also scalable and actionable. By translating complex data into accessible insights and policy briefs, Tiago helps bridging the gap between research and decision-making. His work is central to UPWATER’s mission to build a Water Smart Society.
Turning research into action
For Tiago Carvalho, environmental engineering isn’t just a profession – it’s a way to connect deep scientific insights with the broader systems that shape our world. As part of the UPWATER project, Tiago represents TARH – Earth, Environment and Water Resources, where his team plays a crucial role in evaluating results and helping scale innovative solutions to real-world challenges in water quality.
“Our mission within UPWATER is to make sure that what’s discovered in research can actually be applied,” Tiago explains. “We look at how promising ideas and technologies could work on a larger scale – across bigger areas and water flows – and what that might mean for people and the environment.”
Bridging the gap between innovation and implementation
This work is more than theoretical. Tiago and his colleagues focus on transforming complex scientific data into accessible, evidence-based policy briefs that inform decision-makers. “There’s a growing gap between scientific innovation and practical adoption,” he says. “Too often, we see ‘pilots-to-nowhere’ – great experiments that never reach implementation. We want to change that.”
Exploring the future of water quality
As a specialist in groundwater and aquifer management, Tiago has found the project’s focus on Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CECs) particularly interesting. These are pollutants like PFAS and microplastics that are only now being understood thanks to new, highly sensitive detection methods. “Being part of a project that addresses these critical, emerging issues is incredibly meaningful. This is very important for the future of water quality management,” he reflects.
Embracing complexity in a multicultural project
The path isn’t always easy, though. One of the biggest challenges Tiago faces is the diversity of expertise, working styles, and cultural backgrounds in an international research project like UPWATER. “We don’t just work in our own sandbox,” he says. “We have to understand the perspectives of chemists, geologists, microbiologists, and IT specialists – and then bring all of that together in a way that makes sense to policymakers and the public.” This need for clarity, collaboration, and synthesis has shaped one of Tiago’s biggest takeaways: the importance of communication.
Towards a Water Smart Society
As the project moves into its final phase, TARH is using the growing volume of data from pilot sites to refine conceptual models. These models are vital for making realistic predictions about how nature-based solutions can be used in aquifer restoration and water treatment at scale.
Looking ahead, Tiago is optimistic. He sees the UPWATER project as a powerful step forward – not just for science, but for how science translates into practice. And when asked to share a quote or advice that captures our collaborative journey, he turns to a verse by Spanish poet Antonio Machado, often cited by the founder of TARH (also his father), José Martins Carvalho (see quote).
For Tiago, these words are a reminder that we are all in a collaborative trek, building up on small steps towards a future. “Like most hikes, it’s not always straight forward, there are ups and downs,” he says. “That’s what we’re doing in UPWATER — walking the path together, towards a Water Smart Society.”