Page 41 - ITU Journal - ICT Discoveries - Volume 1, No. 2, December 2018 - Second special issue on Data for Good

ITU JOURNAL: ICT Discoveries, Vol. 1(2), December 2018

3. WATER QUALITY MONITORING
SOLUTIONS

Our second topic in this paper, will discuss water
quality monitoring solutions based on digitalization
and IoT. The monitoring of water bodies is a
requisite to understanding environmental
Fig. 2 – (a) Example from a high intensity rainfall on conditions affecting lakes and rivers and also a
27 July 2015. The gauge’s highest recorded intensities requirement in many regions, such as the EU. As
occurred around 15:05 UTC in the one-minute gauge. The
peak was also well captured by the microwave link, previously mentioned in Section 1, such monitoring
however, the radar failed to see any significant event (b) mainly relies on manual sampling and detection in
and (c). Rainfall intensity maps constructed for an event in laboratories, which takes time and hinders timely
July based on SMHI’s radar (a) and the microwave links (b). and efficient mitigation efforts and thus does not
The density of the links support a high spatial resolution,
and the sampling frequency allows better measurements of provide an early warning system for cities, water
the complete event, compared to the snapshots utilities and communities. To be able to take
provided by the radar. efficient actions, continuous access to improved
data and information of water quality is needed, and
Hence the pilot in Gothenburg showed that there thus opens opportunities for the introduction of
are possibilities in utilizing rain fade in commercial digitalized water monitoring solutions.
networks to measure near real-time rainfall and
unlocking new opportunities and use cases for The information needed to assess water quality is
microwave backhaul solutions. However, errors, mostly related to its physical status (e.g.
such as elevated bias and outliers remained in some temperature), certain chemical compounds (such as
situations, which required further algorithm heavy metals and organic pollutants), and the
development and fine tuning of the overall solution. biological status, where bacteria contamination is
Achieving greater accuracy and more consistent an important factor. Laboratory analyses can obtain
performance was needed to make the data more these results through various accredited techniques
trustworthy, ultimately improving the usability for and enables the overall manual assessment of the
end users and to enable commercial use of the water quality status. However, in recent years,
solution. sensor technologies and the evolution of wireless
solutions for water quality monitoring has evolved
There are today no microwave-based rain- rapidly, making it possible to integrate and deploy
monitoring solutions running on commercial online monitoring solutions [16]. Technologies
telecommunication networks. Therefore, during used can be cloud based or with local server
2017 the project continued in a final phase to capacity and utilize different connectivity options
develop the usability of the algorithms as well as such as cellular and long or short-range capillary
develop use cases for microwave-based rainfall networks.
monitoring.
Several companies have developed commercial
Three simultaneous projects are running, in solutions for digital water monitoring solutions,
Sweden, Germany and in Rwanda with the scope to such as YSI, Hach and Libelium where the core
evaluate tempered and tropical climate conditions, business for most of these is sensor development
to develop business models and industrialization where a wide range of sensors measuring different
for a go-to market of the solution. Furthermore, parameters are offered. Some manufacturers also
through the introduction of 5G and high-frequency offer comprehensive solutions for data and
(100 MHz and beyond) backhaul equipment, there connectivity management, but we have not found
is an interest and opportunity within these projects any commercial offerings related to massive IoT use
to investigate the usefulness of microwave-based cases for water monitoring at large scale. Further, to
monitoring for snow and fog. For these applications be able to deploy massive IoT networks with
these higher frequencies might be needed to induce hundreds of sensing devices, the cost of each
and detect signal disturbances and further individual sensor device need to be as low as
broadening the use and scope of the solution. possible for the solution to be financially and
commercially viable. In practice it means that only
simple parameters can be measured, such as

© International Telecommunication Union, 2018 19