Water or slime? A platform for automating water treatment systems

Abstract

Worldwide, the availability of water is increasingly becoming a political and environmental concern. With a quarter of the world's population living downstream of the receding Himalayan glaciers [1], tensions over availability of fresh water supplies will only rise in the coming years. Surprisingly, few technical solutions have arisen to rein in wasteful water consumption or pollution. In fact, society has a poor understanding about the causes of wasteful consumption and pollution patterns at the heart of these concerns. With Emonix H 2 O, we aim to provide a platform for municipalities in developing and developed regions to identify and control sources of waste in water distribution and treatment systems. Emonix H 2 O provides users with a high-level understanding about water consumption patterns by tracking flow rate and water quality across multiple locations in real time. In a pilot deployment, we demonstrate that simply making system maintainers aware of malfunctions in treatment equipment can drastically reduce waste and pollution.