The Directorate General of Planning and Management of State-Owned Hydrological Resources of the Regional Environment and Land-Use Ministry of Andalusia (Consejería de Medioambiente y Ordenación del Territorio de la Junta de Andalucía) has turned to GMV for carrying out a pilot scheme for measuring various parameters of the water-quality of the dam collecting the waters of the Guadalete River as it flows through the Cadiz locality of Jerez de la Frontera.

The IoT SEMS platform, deployed in the lab of GMV’s Seville office, together with the water-quality sensors set up in the hydraulic infrastructure of the local Cadiz municipality called El Portal, make up a sustainable water-quality-monitoring network for the waters of the Guadalete River, used to irrigate the arable land of northwest Cadiz.

In the words of Ángel Cristóbal Lázaro, GMV’s product leader “the reduced cost of the measuring equipment is a key feature of this platform, allowing technicians of the Directorate General of Planning and Management of State-Owned Hydrological Resources to monitor remotely the reservoir’s water quality”.

Among the many challenges solved by GMV’s engineers in this groundbreaking Internet-of-Things project, special mention must go to the device designed and mounted to reduce power consumption and communications for triggering the sensors only when the technician wishes to measure such parameters as pH, dissolved oxygen or conductivity. At the same time, GMV has come up with an answer for one of its client’s top priorities: cut down the number of on-the-spot equipment-recalibration visits. Moreover, the use of the SIGFOX network has entailed validation of the project’s UNB networks as a communications layer.

The technology used in this GMV-deployed pilot scheme will furnish the regional ministry (Consejería) with a water-quality measuring system tapping into a higher density of measuring points throughout the whole Andalusian territory. This translates in turn into a tighter control of the water network at a lower maintenance cost.

GMV’s project as carried out for the Junta de Andalucía shows that technological breakthroughs like the Internet of Things provide alternative, lower-cost monitoring methods that match any other system in efficiency. This empowers the authorities-that-be to enlarge their network of devices, thereby ensuring compliance with the water-quality requirements laid down by the European Union’s Water-Framework Directive.