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Smart Water

IoT Solutions

Smart Water

Water Management activity affects multiple sectors: agriculture, farming, industry, services, cities… Monitoring potable water, detecting chemical leakages in rivers, controlling realtime leakages in the sea, tracking pressure variations along pipes and checking water quality in facilities such as fishfarms or swimming pools are some examples.

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Smart Water

The challenge

Population growth and climate change are the main challenges for water, a scarce resource.

Some figures…

  • Water scarcity affects more than 40% of the global population and is projected to rise
  • More than 80 per cent of wastewater resulting from human activities is discharged into rivers or sea without any pollution removal
  • Each day, nearly 1,000 children die due to preventable water and sanitation-related diarrheal diseases
  • Approximately 70% of all water abstracted from rivers, lakes and aquifers is used for irrigation
  • Floods and other water-related disasters account for 70% of all deaths related to natural disasters
  • World Water usage distribution:
    • 70% Agriculture: directly affects the subterranean water resources
    • 20% Industry
    • 10% Home use
  • Water demand is expected to be increased 1/3 in 2050 (demand increases 1% each year approximately)
SOLUTIONS-the-challenge-water

IoT Solution for Water Management

Where to monitor water quality?

  • Surface water: river, lakes, transitional waters and coastal waters
  • Subterranean water

Need for ecological control:

  • Biological indicators
  • Hydro-morphological indicators
  • Physio-chemical indicators

Parameters to monitor according to the laws:

  • Suspended solids
  • BOD and COD
  • Ammonium, nitrates and phosphorus
  • Conductivity
  • pH level
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Applications of IoT for Water Management

Any scenario

  • Water quality
  • River flow control
  • Water level: rivers, lakes, sea…
  • Swimming pool remote measurement
  • Conservation of aquatic flora and fauna
  • Improve interaction with users and customers

Industrial

  • Fish farm management
  • Dissolved oxygen and pH levels are essential.
  • Industrial Water Management
  • Waste water control
  • Seawater desalination processes
  • Hydroponics
  • Port management
  • Auxiliary services to the industry

Emergencies

  • Storm water and urban flooding management
  • Chemical leakage monitoring

Management

  • Water distribution network management
  • Water consumption/metering
  • Irrigation Water Management
  • Floods/disaster management
  • Water losses and leak detection
  • Water Storage (tanks, reservoirs, etc.)
  • Aquarium Management
  • Irrigation communities

Benefits of IoT technology for Water Management

  • Up to -10% reduction in water consumption per capita
  • Reduced leakage: -20% wastage reduction
  • Reduced billing
  • Diminished costs:
    • Maintenance costs
    • Emergency repairs
    • Energy costs
  • Recaptured revenue
  • Coordination and synergies between stakeholders
  • Predict potential failures
  • Manage pressure and consumption

Smart Water Products

Smart Water is a product designed to detect the most relevant parameters related to water quality control such as dissolved oxygen, oxidation-reduction potential, pH, conductivity and temperature.

Smart Water Products

Features

Different models for several budgets or needs: Basic, Ions, and Xtreme

Sensors from prestigious manufacturers such as Aqualabo

High accuracy sensors

Real-time information, continuous monitoring

 

Easy installation

Sensors can be placed in a buoy (sea and lakes installation)

Solar powered

Long battery life

Interoperability: any wireless technology

LPWAN and cellular communication protocol for isolated locations

Any Cloud platform

Predictive and preventive models can be built

Add on Plug & Sense! Smart Agriculture

Physical characteristics:

  • Minimal maintenance costs
  • IP65 enclosure / IP68 sensors
  • Weatherproof enclosure / Waterproof sensors (up to 5 bar -50 meters)
  • Easy to deploy

Models and sensors

Smart Water Xtreme sensors

Smart Water Xtreme | Plug&Sense! sensors have been designed to continuously monitoring.All sensor probes incorporate an integrated temperature sensor to compensate measurements. This process is called “integrated temperature compensation”.

All sensors/probes incorporate calibration inside. Very low power consumption. Sleep mode available.
Robust sensor probes: PVC and stainless steel. 5-6 bar pressure resistance.

Optical and anti-fouling systems require less maintenance.
Fouling effect occurs when there is organic materials in the water. It creates a “bio-film” which adheres to the probes and provokes wrong measurements → quality decreases

A variety of mounting accessories for each sensor are available to the customer, to be placed in pipes or tanks.
Protective wildlife accessories are also available.

View Plug&Sense! Model

Technical Guide

Sensors available:

  • Optical dissolved oxygen and temperature (OPTOD)
  • Titanium optical dissolved oxygen and temperature(OPTOD)
  • pH, ORP and temperature (PHEHT)
  • Conductivity, salinity and temperature (C4E)
  • Inductive conductivity, salinity and temperature (CTZN)
  • Turbidity and temperature (NTU)
  • Suspended solids, turbidity, sludge blanket and temperature (MES5)
  • COD, BOD, TOC, SAC254 and temperature StacSense, 2 mm path
  • COD, BOD, TOC, SAC254 and temperature StacSense, 50 mm pathRadar level
  • VEGAPULS C21
  • Temperature, Humidity and Pressure
  • Luminosity (Luxes accuracy)
  • Ultrasound (outdoor IP67)

Smart Water PRO

Smart Water | Plug&sense! allows remote monitoring of the most relevant parameters related to water quality.

View Plug&Sense! Model

Technical Guide

Sensors available:

  • pH
  • Oxidation-Reduction Potential (ORP)
  • Dissolved Oxygen (DO)
  • Conductivity
  • Temperature
  • Calibration Kits for the sensor probes available

Smart Water Ions

Smart Water Ions | Plug&Sense! specializes in measuring ions concentration enabling water quality control in rivers, lakes and the sea.

View Plug&Sense! Model

Technical Guide

Sensors available:

  • Ammonium (NH4+)
  • Bromide (Br–)
  • Calcium (Ca2+)
  • Chloride (Cl–)
  • Cupric (Cu2+)
  • Fluoride (F–)
  • Iodide (I–)
  • Lithium (Li+)
  • Magnesium (Mg2+)
  • Nitrate (NO3–)

Parameters to measure

Dissolved oxygen, pH level, redox (ORP), conductivity, salinity, TDS – Kcl (total dissolved solids), temperature, nephelometric turbidity, suspended solids, sludge blanket.

Ion selective probes: ammonium, nitrate, chloride, sodium and calcium.

Sensors for biochemical and organic levels: fluorometers for chlorophyll, phycocyanin (freshwater BGA), phycoerythrin (marine BGA), CDOM/fDOM (colored dissolved organic matter/ fluorescent dissolved organic matter.

Sensors maintenance

  • It is highly recommendable to maintain the cleaning of sensors: every 2 weeks approximately.
  • Sea installations require more frequent maintenance.
  • There are some anti-fouling methods:
    • Optical technology.
    • Inductive technology.
    • Brushes
    • Copper coverage.
    • Led UV system.

* These are not 100% effective.

  • There are some anti-fouling methods:
    • Optical technology.
    • Inductive technology.
    • Brushes
    • Copper coverage.
    • Led UV system.

Influential measurement factors

TURBIDITY

Please be aware that turbidity IS NOT the same as suspended solids.

  • Turbidity is measured in NTU (Nephelometric Turbidity Units).
  • Suspended solids are measured in mg/l.

There are several factors which provoke water turbidity:

  • Phytoplankton and/or algae presence.
  • Effluent water or wastewater discharge.

Particles absorb heat from sunlight, making the water hotter and this reduces the concentration of oxygen in the water. The particles also scatter light, decreasing photosynthetic activity in plants which contribute to lower oxygen concentration even more.

Higher and quicker sedimentation process (in highly turbid waters), fish eggs and insect larvae in the river bed become covered and suffocate, the gills of the fish become damaged.

CONDUCTIVITY

  • Usually suspended solids are salts. Total suspended solids can be “controlled” with conductivity.
  • Generally the conductivity of a solution increases with temperature, as the mobility of the ions increases. Here lies the need for the “temperature compensation process”.
  • Saline waters deteriorate sensors faster. Please pay attention to maintenance and replacement.

pH LEVEL

  • pH is measured in scale from 0 (acid) to 14 (basic).
    • Fresh water: 7.0
    • Seawater: 8.2
  • Aquatic species usually live in waters between 6.0 and 8.2

DISSOLVED OXYGEN

  • Oxygen enters the water by direct absorption from the atmosphere, by rapid movement, or as a waste product of plant photosynthesis.
  • Water temperature and the volume of moving water can affect dissolved oxygen levels. Oxygen dissolves easier in cooler water than in warmer water.
  • Dissolved oxygen levels that drop below 5.0 mg/L cause stress to aquatic life. Lower concentrations cause greater stress.
  • Oxygen levels below 1-2 mg/L for a few hours may result in large fish deaths.

BOD and COD cannot be measured with a probe directly. Instead, we can measure carbon levels.

Wireless communication protocols available to connect devices

  • 802.15.4
  • ZigBee
  • WiFi
  • 868
  • 900
  • 4G
  • LoRaWAN
  • Sigfox

Smart Water Success Stories

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If you want more info about Water Management applications