ICT for efficient water resources management: The ICeWater energy management and control approach

Improving water resource management is a critical issue and is becoming increasingly relevant due to the increase in population and ageing of infrastructures. In response to this, research and development activities on new solutions supporting a more rational management are currently performed in many technological areas. Present paper addresses the energy management problem from the modeling and control perspective, considering optimal pressure management and network sectorization. This is part of the solutions under development by the European Commission (EC) funded collaborative project ICeWater, which aims to develop a flexible architecture allowing different water decision support modules to work in an integrated manner. ICeWater focuses on using a service oriented approach to connect the different systems, enabling higher flexibility to the urban water utilities. Key areas of focus are improving energy efficiency of water networks highly dependent on energy, as well as reduction of water loss via innovative leak detection mechanisms. In this paper we present the initial architecture of the ICeWater system and rationale for its selection, focusing on energy management of the water distribution network, which enables significant reduction in the pressure and the associated pumping and leakage, and the control logic to practically implement the sectorisation of the water distribution network and achieve water loss and energy consumption reduction

CogMAC: a cognitive link layer for wireless local area networks

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Optimization of the performance of the link layer in wireless networks is complex due to multiple parameters involved. Network management in real-time and performance adaptation are extremely challenging. In this paper, we introduce CogMAC, a cognitive link layer approach capable of tuning the network performance in highly dynamic environments. Results obtained using simulations and testbed measurements evince the superiorities of the proposed approach over existing non-adaptive techniques.19613371347Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)National Research Fund, Luxembourg [C12/IS/3977641]Marie Curie Actions of the European CommissionFundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)FAPESP [2007/57336-0]National Research Fund, Luxembourg [C12/IS/3977641

Citizens' campaigns for environmental water monitoring: Lessons from field experiments

Advanced sensing technologies, combined with wireless sensor networks, have already demonstrated their value in monitoring urban water systems, where management is rather centralized within water utility organizations. Environmental water resources, characterized by more diverse stakeholders and overlapping management responsibilities of different agencies, present more challenging contexts for implementing novel sensing technologies. Crowdsourcing by citizens has been proposed as an alternative approach for adaptive data collection that can augment the amount of data collected, as well as bring together the diverse stakeholders and citizens in more participatory water resources management processes. This article first introduces the challenges of designing citizens' campaigns for collecting data on environmental waters. A set of developed mobile phone and web applications is then introduced, integrated within a specific platform, as it was used in the execution of citizens' campaigns for data needed in flood analysis and management. Experiences and lessons learned are presented from the field execution of citizens' campaigns in two pilot areas located in Europe-the Danube Delta in Romania, and the Kifissos catchment in Greece. Two of the campaigns are on river data collection-water levels and water velocities, and two on collecting land use/land cover data. Surveys carried out with campaign participants indicate their appreciation of the initiative, but challenges remain regarding user-friendliness of the applications. Logistic issues such as timing, duration, and pathways for data collection impacted the motivation of participants. Overall, a unique and large dataset was obtained in terms of quantitative water measurements, despite data losses due to low raw data quality. Further work lies in evaluating the usability of this dataset for local authorities. © 2013 IEEE

Citizens' campaigns for environmental water monitoring: Lessons from field experiments

Advanced sensing technologies, combined with wireless sensor networks, have already demonstrated their value in monitoring urban water systems, where management is rather centralized within water utility organizations. Environmental water resources, characterized by more diverse stakeholders and overlapping management responsibilities of different agencies, present more challenging contexts for implementing novel sensing technologies. Crowdsourcing by citizens has been proposed as an alternative approach for adaptive data collection that can augment the amount of data collected, as well as bring together the diverse stakeholders and citizens in more participatory water resources management processes. This article first introduces the challenges of designing citizens' campaigns for collecting data on environmental waters. A set of developed mobile phone and web applications is then introduced, integrated within a specific platform, as it was used in the execution of citizens' campaigns for data needed in flood analysis and management. Experiences and lessons learned are presented from the field execution of citizens' campaigns in two pilot areas located in Europe-the Danube Delta in Romania, and the Kifissos catchment in Greece. Two of the campaigns are on river data collection-water levels and water velocities, and two on collecting land use/land cover data. Surveys carried out with campaign participants indicate their appreciation of the initiative, but challenges remain regarding user-friendliness of the applications. Logistic issues such as timing, duration, and pathways for data collection impacted the motivation of participants. Overall, a unique and large dataset was obtained in terms of quantitative water measurements, despite data losses due to low raw data quality. Further work lies in evaluating the usability of this dataset for local authorities