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The Internet of Things, Smart Cities and World Water Day

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The United Nations deemed March 22 World Water Dayas a way to call global attention to this diminishing resource.

By Audrey Willis | Published 8 years ago | About a 2 minute read

Challenges Facing Urban Centers

A major challenge populations around the globe are facing is diminishing freshwater resources: A staggering 89 percent of global population relies on improved water supply systems that lose about 32 billion cubic meters of precious water via physical leakage. As a result, up to 50 percent of the world’s population (four billion people) will reside in water-stressed areas by 2025. A growing global population will increase energy demand by 56 percent by 2040 — and the US holds the unenviable position of second-highest energy consumer worldwide.

How Smart City Technology Can Improve Urban Sustainability

According to figures published by the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), smart city technologies will grow to an industry worth $27.5 billion by 2023. In addition, the world will be home to about 88 smart cities by 2025. Big data analytics will produce insights that city authorities could use to improve road and rail transport, reduce crime, improve health care, improve public service delivery, and reduce wastage of financial resources. Meanwhile, many household appliances including fridges, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, locks, lights, and HVAC units can be tweaked to become IoT-compliant, enabling them for use in monitoring and providing feedback on the surrounding environment or performing a range of other tasks.

Cities can deploy this technology to improve service delivery. A good example would be water supply systems fitted with IoT sensors to measure water pressure, chemical composition, and flow. When undesirable changes occur, relevant authorities can take corrective measures immediately, aided by real-time data. The City of Dubuque, IA, for example, has helped households reduce water consumption by about 7 percent, thanks to a smart water system running since 2010. And in 2015, AT&T, IBM and Mueller Water Products joined forces to develop an IoT approach to leak-monitoring technology, which was trialed in Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles.

For more on the potential implications and applications of IoT, see the attached infographic, created by the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Online Masters in Computer Science program.