Smart Water Management Using IoT: Benefits & Solutions

Access to water seems to be ever-present. Yet, according to WWF, two-thirds of the world’s population may experience water scarcity by 2025. Growing population and climate change are the primary reasons for this, yet there are other, no less significant ones. Overloaded water infrastructure, pollution, and improper water management add to this unfavorable scenario.

If there are means to cut these issues, smart water management using IoT seems the most viable solution. Whether a consumer, governmental structure, or agricultural business — every individual and industry equally benefit from this.

Companies worldwide increasingly invest in smart water management, pushing this market from $14.3 billion in 2021 to $53.6 billion in 2031. Businesses leverage IoT sensors and devices to monitor their water distribution networks, facilitating the preservation of resources.

Today, WebbyLab will go into IoT smart water management and its benefits in greater detail. We’ll show the real-life applications of such systems, using our projects like the 2Smart Standalone automation platform as an example.

The user interface of the 2Smart Standalone automation platform.

What Does Smart Water Management Mean?

Smart water management is a process of planning, allocating, and monitoring water resources and maintaining related equipment like pipes and pumps through IoT hardware and software.

The IoT-based water management system uses sensors, controllers, meters, and other devices connected to mobile, web apps, and data processing and analysis tools. All this creates a platform for efficient water supply management, freshwater quality checking, pollution detection, and more.

How does a smart water management system work? IoT devices and sensors attached to the pipes and pumps collect real-time data on water temperature, level, flow, etc. Then, they transmit this data via the Internet to a cloud server for further processing and analysis. The insights obtained contribute to proper water resources management and equipment maintenance.

Main Benefits of Using IoT for Water Management

The Internet of Things in water management works well for various stakeholders, including businesses, governments, and consumers. It facilitates sustainability and efficiency and provides valuable insights into water resources and associated equipment. Other benefits of IoT-powered smart water management system are as follows:

Real-Time Water Consumption Analysis

IoT-enabled water management systems leverage numerous sensors that collect real-time insights on how resources are used. These devices transmit the gathered data to the user’s application online. This information empowers analysis of consumption patterns and encourages more rational water consumption.

Reduced Equipment Maintenance Expenses

The water industry involves various equipment and machinery that has to be maintained. By attaching IoT devices to storage tanks, pipes, pumps, treatment plants, and other assets, companies can reduce maintenance expenses with constant monitoring and automation techniques.

Transparency and Better Communication Among Stakeholders

IoT makes all processes in the water supply chain transparent through real-time insights collection. All stakeholders can view that data, mitigating misunderstandings, improving performance, and making better business decisions.

Remote Monitoring

Industrial IoT monitoring systems connected to the water supply chain allow stakeholders to manage their equipment and water networks remotely. Like WebbyLab’s 2Smart Standalone, combined with the 2Smart Cloud platform, enables monitoring the water system from anywhere there is the Internet.

Automation and Optimized Human Resources Use

IoT smart water management solutions allow businesses to automate numerous procedures that require manual intervention. The scope of automated processes varies by industry, but some may include automatic water supply or dynamic pricing based on water resources used.

Reduced Risks

IoT devices for water management allow for data collection and analysis, which enables businesses to forecast issues and respond to them instantly. For example, they can use IoT systems to check water quality and identify contamination before it becomes hazardous.

IoT Solutions in Water Management

There are various use cases of IoT in water management. Let’s consider the main ones.

Smart Irrigation

These IoT-based systems enable on-demand irrigation. They leverage sensors that check soil temperature and humidity, analyze weather forecasts, consider the watering calendar, and suggest the perfect irrigation strategy based on the collected data. Our 2Smart Standalone platform supports smart irrigation features, achieving the best plant health and yields.

Water System Integrity

Other solutions in water management include sensors that track damage in pipes and other assets. They help prevent leakages and water resource waste. There are plenty of such devices on the market, and Strips Drip by Sensative water leak and temperature sensor is one of them.

Smart Water Monitoring

Water monitoring systems include the water system integrity and irrigation features mentioned above. They also involve sensors for determining water quality, telemetry devices, tools for tracking rainwater, etc. All this enables water monitoring and subsequent effective decision-making based on the collected data. Our 2Smart Standalone solution is an example of such a system, as its architecture allows for connecting various water monitoring sensors via any protocol.

Smart Water Management

A smart water management system using IoT technology includes various water monitoring devices and sensors combined with advanced data analytics tools. These can be smart metering, user dashboards, and custom solutions for water management automation. For example, 2Smart Standalone enables the creation of limitless automation scenarios like smart irrigation, leakage detection, or support of the required water condition parameters.

Managing the greenhouse parameters via a mobile app.

Real-Life Examples of Smart Water Management Systems Using IoT

IoT solutions for water management found applications across numerous industries, from agriculture to city administration. Let’s look at some real-life examples of these technologies.

Smart Irrigation of City Parks

Water waste and overloaded water supply networks are the main IoT challenges in smart water system that significantly affect the city’s budget. Still, the Internet of Things helps tackle those issues.

If we take smart watering of parks as an example, IoT-enabled solutions monitor soil state, weather forecasts, and current weather conditions to suggest the optimal irrigation scheme. That has been successfully implemented in the San Isidro park in Lima, Peru.

Monitoring the Quality of River Water

Ericsson and AT&T have partnered to create a solution to monitor water quality in the Chattahoochee River in Atlanta, Georgia, which is the source of drinking water for about four million people. They used IoT sensors to determine the water’s temperature, thermometry, and turbidity.

Smart Dam Monitoring

ThingsLog has offered an IoT solution for monitoring dams in Bulgaria. It helps to observe the water level in each section of the dam, and in case of deviation from normal indicators, the system sends an alert.

WebbyLab Can Help with IoT Smart Water Management Solutions

WebbyLab has been building IoT apps and devices since 2011. During this time, we delivered many smart water management digital solutions like 2Smart Standalone, HVAC projects like SmartHeat, and energy management platforms like MyBox. All of this with the help of the Internet of Things.

Our company can handle smart water management using IoT project of any complexity. We strictly follow our client’s requirements to achieve the best results.

Using 2Smart Standalone for Smart Water Management

Our 2Smart Standalone is an all-in-one home and industrial automation platform. You can use it to perform various tasks in smart water management, owing to its flexible architecture that enables connecting any IoT sensors and devices.

Connecting various IoT devices and sensors to the 2Smart Standalone platform.

This platform supports numerous custom automation scenarios and models, some of which may include the following:

• Monitoring water quality
• Supervising the infrastructure and equipment
• Sending notifications if the system parameters are outside the configured limits, e.g., deteriorated water quality, leakage detection
• Enabling smart irrigation based on soil state, weather forecast, and irrigation calendar
• Maintaining the necessary parameters of the water’s state in a habitable artificial reservoir

On top of that, 2Smart Standalone is a scalable solution, so it may help to maintain one or multiple sites simultaneously. The system operator, in turn, can effortlessly view and manage necessary parameters through the configurable dashboard. All historical data is stored in the database, which an operator can access through the Grafana web app.

You can also find more IoT projects in our portfolio.