Today, global water resources are facing numerous challenges, such as population growth, migration, ecosystem pollution, water reuse, water rights, and more. Access to water is a basic human right and using it in an efficient manner becomes critical.
In recent years, the World Economic Forum Annual Global Risks Report (2017) pointed out that environmental risks will exceed economic risks, and water resources risks are one of the three major risks in the world.
By 2025, it is expected that 70% of the world’s population will live in cities, and almost half of the population will face water shortages. According to a United Nations survey report, approximately 1.8 billion people will suffer from water shortages by 2025.
To address these challenges, the EU began working with environmentalists to develop appropriate water standards and regulations to ensure water resources are used in an efficient manner.
Before any legislation can be implemented, there are key parameters that need to be addressed, namely drinking water quality and economic regulations to ensure that consumer needs are met while maintaining economic and environmental practices. These key challenges urgently require a new technological revolution.
As urbanization accelerates, water consumption is also growing rapidly. Effective use of existing water resources is an important way to improve water quality, and better resource planning is particularly important.
IoT helps to effectively control water resources, so it is important to develop efficient and optimized smart water monitoring systems. Better irrigation facilities can be provided through smart water management systems, especially in urban areas. With so many leaks occurring, various investigative reports concluded that approximately $2.5 billion is spent annually to detect and repair water leaks. If companies start adopting IoT in their water management systems, they could save $7.1 billion to $12.5 billion annually. Not only that, people can also adopt smart water supply systems at home.
What is smart water management?
Smart water monitoring capabilities help water solution providers develop smart water management solutions that are well-versed in real-time water leakage detection, water quality monitoring, water management through sensors, and more. Such systems help to understand key factors such as real-time water pressure, water level, temperature, water flow, etc. However, not every company has a real-time advanced capability that can identify predictive analytics and real-time changing factors.
Here are the key benefits of implementing IoT in the water industry:
Improve efficiency
With real-time operations, businesses can use real-time data to make more informed decisions. This real-time data helps control threats occurring in operational processes, thereby making decisions ahead of operational costs and reducing operational costs. Real-time data from sensors and reduced human intervention help improve water management practices.
increase income
Real-time monitoring of all equipment helps reduce overall management costs and significantly reduces maintenance costs, saves energy costs, improves operational processes, reduces infrastructure costs, and minimizes human intervention. One of the major cost-consuming factors in the water industry is mobility, the movement of water from one place to another. Reduced distribution costs and water usage will lead to higher revenues.
Greater productivity and efficiency
With the help of IoT, people can determine real-time data and information to make smarter business decisions. These predictive maintenance capabilities help predict impending failures and remediate risks immediately. Therefore, this increases the productivity and efficiency of the system.
lowest maintenance costs
An industrial study shows that 30% of preventive maintenance activities are completed within a short period of time. Furthermore, the same study found that 45% of these efforts produced no results, which subsequently led to asset management failures. Smart water monitoring systems provide predictive maintenance capabilities, and an IBM study showed that using sensor data and troubleshooting 70%, downtime is reduced by 50%, and planned maintenance is reduced by 12%. Finding the real-time location of all assets and reducing maintenance costs can help minimize leak incidents in the water industry.
Improved and transparent asset utilization
IoT sensors also provide data that helps track assets in real time, providing real-time visibility into processes. With real-time asset tracking, companies can monitor drinking water, pH, temperature, water pressure and other parameters. Not only that, but real-time data will tell businesses more about the theft that occurs throughout the end-to-end process. IoT analytics eliminates these behaviors and provides a real-time view so enterprises can make informed business decisions.
in conclusion
The Internet of Things brings huge advantages to many industries, opening up new avenues for data collection, monitoring and problem solving. It’s an exciting time for the Internet of Things as it creates a wide range of opportunities for every industry, whether manufacturing, oil and gas, transportation or others. Among numerous industry challenges, IoT will become a one-stop solution.