Water is a scarce resource for humanity. However, its protection has become a global challenge. World organizations like the United Nations are now listing safe and more affordable drinking water for all by 2030 as a sustainable development goal for humankind.

According to the World Health Organization, water availability is less than 1,700 cubic meters per year per habitant. That is the ratio of total withdrawals to the total renewable supply in an area.

The IoT technology and innovations such as LoRaWAN provide smart water conservation that better performances to local water meters used in metering water, gas, and other utilities.

But many water networks are still suffering because of aging infrastructure, miss appropriation, and corrosion water leaks, or waterworks miss operation. This leads to losing over 24% of the produced water over the network.

This article discusses how using technology systems such as quality water sensors or pumps, pollution, metering solution systems, and water leak detectors can improve efficiency and help save water.

Digitizing the water supply process

Using IoT smart water conservation can become a significant booster for smart and effective water service at a managed cost. LoRaWAN empowered technology system can extract water from its natural source to the ultimate consumer in a complete water cycle.

However, monitoring water quality is crucial for water utilities such as LoRaWAN as they commit to delivering a high level of water quality from production to consumers.

The world health organization has defined key parameters for monitoring drinking water, including connectivity, absolute pressure, temperature, and active clarity. We should therefore measure water quality to;

• Ensure a constant high level of water quality from production to end consumer
• Improve the management and monitoring of the drinking water supply
• Reduce the impact of water network incidents
• Alert on contamination and
• Supervise critical locations as a step tone for city resilience

Using a system of buoyancy and installed pipes to measure water quality and transmit data in real-time for analysis can increase digitization, monitoring, and protection of surface water and contribute to preserving its quality.

On top of the measuring system, the IoT system comprises an anchor that floats on energy generating module, allowing self-sufficiency. You can install it directly and easily on any surface water.

The deployment of the IoT system by LoRaWAN gives a guarantee for the;

• Protection of surface water resources
• Rapidly detection and variation in the water quality
• Limit the economic effects of any pollution and
• Security of the water resources against accidental contamination or malicious act

Monitoring and detecting water quality and pollution using new sensors

This involves using digital water sensors to get a digital signal with a water quality value used for the monitoring process.

This sensor comes with a small Wi-Fi system that allows you to use your mobile and android application to take access locally, do maintenance and calibration of the sensor. Hence the water monitoring can be done anywhere.

Using these sensors to monitor water quality in industry or domestic can be helpful since it involves the removal of contaminants in the water through physical, biological, and sometimes chemical processes.

Industries that use a lot of water for their processes need to have their wastewater treatment plant. Besides, they can pay a fee to the local municipal water treatment plant and send water to it. However, the rules are different in each country.

Another exciting market is fish farming and aquaculture. This is a booming market, and fish farmers may need technology for three reasons:

To optimize their projection process, keep a certain oxygen level in the fish’s water and optimize the feeding system. This involves monitoring dissolved oxygen and turbidity to save energy and feeding costs which are the significant expenses in a fish farm.

Second, fish farms also create pollution. They have to monitor their wastewater and prove that they do not cause pollutions. Fish farmers need oxygen sensors connected to the LoRaWAN system to send notifications if the DO level in the tank is too low.

Finally, civil engineering companies work on a water surface; they need IoT smart water conservation technology to measure turbidity before and after the workplace to ensure that this work doesn’t harm the environment.

Stopping water wastage using Smart Valves

This IoT system involves valves to leverage the power of LoRaWAN, and one of its benefits is the extreme range propagation and ultra-low power.

These valves have several features that are pretty interesting for the water and the protect water business.

First, it has a real-time clock that permits automated time control operation and pulse counting. Coupled with a straightforward water meter, you can detect every usage by calculating the values and uploading the information of the counter value up to the control room.

The valves can work within very high pressure to immediately detect a temperature that is uploaded up to the control. Smart valves are commonly used for network flushing since if the water stays too long into the pipe, there can be a risk of bacteria contamination.

Therefore, using the Internet of Things solutions such as flushing 10 or 15 minutes per day ensures rid of debris, bacteria, and all potential problems.

In water leak control, the strike valve automatically closes the water mains. This is done through a wired leak detection sensor which has an application that detects and closes directly from the valve.

Empowering end-users to save more water with IoT smart water conservation

Consumers are at the end of the water cycle, and we are convinced that we can help end-users use less water by changing behavior and using the right tools like solutions. They can save water between 20 and 50% by decreasing the number of leaks inside their buildings.

It’s possible to save over 20% of water consumption by managing people to pay more attention to the volume of water used every day. By adapting and optimizing equipment used, it’s possible to save over 10%, not only in buildings.

For example, agriculture uses 70% of worldwide water. Although there is an exception in this area as the water is used for irrigation and livestock feeding, we can use only the right level of water and avoid wastage. We have to regulate irrigation to avoid spreading fields when unnecessary.

It’s possible to save water. Unfortunately, because of climate change, there are more droughts and people are moving from up countries to big houses, but the quantity of water doesn’t increase, and we have the same volume to spread to more people.

It’s, therefore, necessary to set simple rules. First, we need to raise people’s awareness about ways to use less water daily. We need to avoid water wastage and detect leaks as soon as possible, and we need to repair and maintain water pipes in good condition.

We also need to use water consumption indicators to know our water consumption records and then read, analyze and use data. You can also download all consumption data trends, compare and solve consumption of different sensors to have a global consumption of an area, and save water.

For example, if a toilet flush is blocked for one week and nobody is inside the building, water wastage is likely to be about 60,000 liters. However, with a solution, a technician can fix the problem in less than 1 hour, and only 0.3 cubic meters be wasted.

Using Artificial Intelligence within LoRaWAN allows people to react even faster to fix all issues with water networks. Today, the results are significant because, with only one indicator, over 30% of the water has been saved.

In Conclusion

The most inspiring motivation is to find a better use and lower cost of water using technology for the planet and humanity.

The digitization of water network distributions, monitoring water quality using sensors, stopping water wastage using smart valves, and empowering end-users to understand how to use and save water are some of the best ways to help us save more water.