SMARTWATIR
SMART WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORK TO DETECT AND PURIFICATE WATER SALINITY AND POLLUTION FOR AGRICULTURE IRRIGATION
Innovation Project
OBJECTIVES / MOTIVATION
The water scarcity is one of the major problems of the twenty- first century. Moreover, fresh water pollution is a worldwide problem that affects the agriculture and the human health. The use of polluted water in agriculture is causing many problems. In order to minimize the pressure over the water resources, precision agriculture techniques should be employed. However, before using polluted water for smart irrigation, it is necessary to perform some decontamination task. Depending on the type of pollutant, it is required different techniques to detect and remove it. In order to avoid high impact and damage in the affected area, the most important action is to perform a quick detection and determine the place where there is high water salinity level, the pollution stain or spill. Due to its fast dispersion, they are very difficult to be cleaned if the decontamination tasks do not start immediately.
In this project we propose a system that includes a smart group-based wireless sensor network which is able to detect, locate, monitor, and track the high salinity levels and pollution stains, such as oil spills. Moreover, a new kind of water treatment plant is proposed to depollute the water before the irrigation. The proposal includes some fixed wireless sensor nodes and many mobile wireless nodes are able to move towards the end of the stain seeking its edge in order to delimit the boundary of the stain. They are low-cost, small-size and low-power consumption underwater multifunctional sensor nodes that will be grouped depending on their monitoring purpose. These nodes use IEEE 802.15.4 standard to communicate in open air and acoustic communication to communicate wirelessly under the water and the Global Position System GPS; to know the position of the stain. The proposal also includes the design of a water treatment plant using bioabsortion techniques. Agriculture wastes will be used as bioabsortion materials to eliminate the pollution.
The system will use artificial intelligence techniques and data fusion methodologies in order to quantify the amount of pollution in the source and to detect and predict its movement and form. These techniques will allow the system to be conscious of what is happening in the water environment and send alarms through the warning system. This information will be used to define one treatment or other before to use the water for smart irrigation.
The main benefit of this project is to improve the water management in arid or semiarid regions, where the pollution are becoming a hot issue. Moreover as the bioabsortion materials will be the agricultural wastes it is expected a revalorization of a spin-off from the agriculture. This will suppose in conjunction with the water saving cost and increase of economic benefits of agriculture based on marginal water.
The project include partners from both sides of the Mediterranean and experts from different knowledge areas. This will promote knowledge exchange along the countries and expertise areas. The involved countries are Spain, France, Morocco and Egypt. The different expertise areas included in the project are: environmental engineering, socioeconomics, informatics, telecommunication engineering, electronical engineering and computer engineering. It is a transnational and multidisciplinary project.
THE MAIN OBJECTIVES ARE:
• Improve the sensor technology for the aquatic environment monitoring by developing low-cost, small-size and low-power consumption multifunction underwater sensors.
• Develop a system of warning alarms when the water quality standard is exceeded for driving the water used to irrigation of fields to an infrastructure to process and purify it.
• Develop a smart system platform able to process the water according to the levels of pollutants and salinity/conductivity before to use the water for irrigation.
• Monitor and control the pollution in the water source and along the bioabsortion process.
• Develop a system for removing the pollution based on bioabsortion of the agricultural wastes before to use the water for irrigation.
• Improve the sustainability and the economic benefits of the agriculture using marginal water by the efficient use of water and the revalorization of agricultural wastes.
• Deploy a low-cost monitoring and warning alarm system that will be able to improve sustainability, protect the environment from human made-actions and protect agriculture from other activities.
APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY
• To achieve the aforementioned goals different methodologies will be employed. First, the group of experts on environmental engineering (EE) will characterize the pollution in the channel and will propose the biosorption needed to ensure a minimum water quality for agriculture.
• The group of experts on electronics, computation and telecommunication engineering (ECTE) will work on developing specific WSN to monitor water quality in the channel, along the biosorption process and the water demand in the field. In parallel, the group of EE will evaluate the resultant water quality and the field needs, considering the reduction of pollution.
• The group of experts on ECTE will focus their work on the most suitable sensor for water demand in the field, mentored by the experts on EE.
• In the last stage of the project, the specialist on Informatics will develop the needed applications to monitor and control all the process using the developed sensors. Moreover, many efforts will be done in order to reduce the pollution sources along the channel with environmental awareness campaigns and the valorization of sustainable products by the experts on socio-economy.
EXPECTED RESULTS AND OUTCOMES
EXPECTED IMPACTS ON THE SOCIOECONOMIC CHALLENGES
• The capability to use polluted water for irrigation.
• Guaranty that their crops are free of pollutant which can increase the market destination.
• Control remotely the state of their plots.
• Enjoy a cleaner river environment.
• Educate people who do not care about the environment.
• The fast detection of pollution can prevent further damages.
• The decontamination of water before the irrigation will ensure that the pollutant does not pass to the soil /aquifer.
• Reduction of the water demand due to the smart irrigation.
• Reduction of the pollution linked to agriculture water spills.
EXPECTED IMPACTS ON TECHNOLOGY
• New sensors for better understanding the rivers and sea.
• A clear list of which parameters should be monitored in order to predict the de-pollution needs.
• Generate specifications about the correct deployment for sensors in the water source/field with monitoring purposes.
• Low-cost, small-size and low-power consumption proposals for underwater sensor nodes to measure water quality.
• An intelligent monitoring system to predict pollution movement in a water body.
• Cheap and easy-to-use system able to monitor the river pollution and its reduction after a treatment plant.
• Architecture and protocol for group-based collaborative underwater linear sensor network.
• Development of energy harvesting techniques for sensors on water environments.