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In this new collaboration with l’Altra Ràdio we discuss proposals aimed at councils for urban management improvement and smart cities upgrade.
Cities considering the digitalization or modernization of municipal services such as the management of drinking water are known as “smart” cities.
In “smart” cities – apart from enabling the implementation of new services such as monitoring air, light or noise pollution, waste management in aspects from container occupation to garbage collection routes, management and consumption of the power generation and distribution network, comfort in public areas or offices as well as other services – also allow the digitization and modernization of current services or procedures such as the management of drinking water.
XOIC tasks is to advise and encourage town halls to implement these kind of policies and services on an open& common network that ensures not only the use of the infrastructure, but also reduces the amortization time: reusing network for different uses, from different providers and manufacturers without any of them being able to “hijack” the network.
Mouth Water Talk
A smart city allows complete monitoring of the water cycle: from collection to delivery to the end user. It includes tasks such as the supervision of the water level of the catchment wells, the correct value of the sanitary parameters and its processing, transport and distribution up to its consumption in a transparent way to the service. The technology collects details such as the level and pressure at different points in the network or other sanitary values related to water quality such as PH or turbulence.
Innovation is presented in how this monitoring is carried out: remotely, non-invasively and allowing continuous supervision. Communication through a network of things allows exhaustive monitoring and avoids displacement, quite critical when considering remote locations or with difficult access. A better investment of the efforts of the human team and an exhaustive monitoring of consumption are achieved. In the case of smart flowmeters that deliver their measurement through the network the municipal staff responsible for water management does not need to dedicate themselves to reviewing and recording the value of each of the domestic flowmeters, one by one and several times a year so they can focus on more delicate tasks such as leak detection, systematic breakdowns and the study of preventive measures.
Improving the service for reading drinking water consumption meters, achieving more reliable continuous measurements, also makes it possible to detect and identify leaks in the distribution network more quickly and accurately.a.
At next stage, unexpected consumption behaviors can be detected and, if necessary, adjust the municipal use to different time slots than the classic ones. The volume of leaks can also be reduced by limiting the stress on the network, preventing the filling of city tanks collisioning with the peak of water consumption, so dynamic today that consumption is adjusted to the time slot in which the price of supply of electrical power is more economical, for that specific day in which we take advantage of it for irrigation or the use of dishwashers and washing machines.
Beyond characterizing consumption and rethinking strategies, it also allows us abuse detection such as the manipulation of flowmeters, ornamental irrigation or the filling of swimming pools in situations of drought and water restrictions.
It is about giving more value to such an important and increasingly scarce asset such as drinking water, improving the comfort and efficiency of the human team. This is the sense of dedicating efforts to digitize municipalities and digitize the management of municipal resources.
You can listen to this speech at minute 40’25 at L’@altraradio from @radio4_rne 22/3 podcast at https://www.rtve.es/play/audios/laltra-radio/manifest-intelligencia-artificial-civica-civicai/6839246/