OAKLAND, Calif. — Water, it is often said, is the new carbon: the next critical piece of business operations to manage and use efficiently. But the vast majority of innovations in water technology are often overlooked by investors, the press and the public, according to Laura Shenkar, the principal at the Artemis Project.

"During this period when the challenges to water supply and water quality are just beginning to affect business, these are companies that are blazing the trail toward green recovery. They are creating what will be one of the great high-growth industries of the 21st Century," Shenkar said. "The Artemis Project Top 50 companies are just the tip of the iceberg for a major industry that will generate thousands of companies and green jobs."

To that end, Shenkar and a team of judges compiled a list of more than 120 companies that are pushing the envelope in terms of water treatment, purification and management. Those companies were then rated on four criteria: technology, intellectual property and know-how, team quality and market potential. The judges also applied ipCapital Group's proprietary ipDimensional Scoring algorithm, which objectively ranks companies within a particular sector based on the relative value of its patents.

The winning companies span a range of different technologies. The top prize was given to Arizona-based stormwater treatment company AbTech Industries, Massachusetts-based desalination experts Oasys Water and Vermont-based Seldon Technologies, makers of a nano-tube water-filtration system.

"The goal of this competition was to show the U.S venture capital community the diversity and investment potential of an international network of advanced water technology companies," Shenkar said. "The fact that the top three winners of this competition are U.S. based companies should serve as a wakeup call to the U.S. investment community. Water will be a big industry sooner rather than later; it's flourishing in our own backyard."

In general, Shenkar said the companies that made the list are working on one or more of the following six trends in water management:

1. Acoustic Water Purification
2. Wastewater Purification
3. Software for Water Management
4. Disinfection/Iodine and Ultraviolet and Advanced Oxidation
5. Waste Mining
6. Energy Recovery

In acoustic water purification, companies are using either sounds or lasers to make a bubble in the water, which then explodes; and the heat and electricity and the shock has an impact to the molecules around it in killing off bacteria and purifying the water. This technique has been used most often in small-scale projects in wastewater and medical settings.

Wastewater purification can be used to recycle water to almost any grade -- in Singapore, Shenkar explained, companies are taking wastewater and purifying it to drinking quality. Although that's not a level the U.S. is likely to reach soon, it is a technology with significant uses.

Water-management software is currently put to use at both macro and micro levels, from Global Information Systems (GIS) satellites reading the lay of the water to ground-level implementations of water sensors to maximize water efficiency in landscaping.

On the disinfection fronts, iodine and chlorine both get bad raps, but Shenkar explains that natural iodine is quite safe to use, and companies like BioLargo are putting it to use with advanced delivery methods. Ultraviolet light is an up-and-coming solution, Shenkar said, in large part because of companies developing LED ultraviolet lights, which are much smaller and less hazardous to dispose of.

Waste mining is a form of wastewater purification, where companies can take out the elements within the wastewater and use some of remnants for beneficial purposes. An example Shenkar offered was mining the nitrogen from the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico's dead zones -- companies are developing ways to remove the nitrogen and reuse it.

Finally, energy recovery takes away one of the largest obstacles for widespread adoption of desalination: it currently takes an enormous amount of energy to filter and purify water, but companies are working on methods that use the non-filtered water to power turbines that run the machine, thereby recovering as much as 95 percent of the energy needed to desalinate water.

For more details on the companies and a complete list of the Artemis Project's first annual Top 50 Water Companies Competition winners please visit TheArtemisProject.com.

Water photo CC-licensed by Flickr user Refracted Moments™.