Water management system based on innovative monitoring equipment and dss

Scientific objectives and approach:

WATER MONITOR project will provide a monitoring system of water sources, both quantitative and qualitative, on the basis of a new analysis technology set up.
This innovative instrumentation, an UV-Vis spectrometer, enables the tests of water quality in real time, providing a complete monitoring of water characteristics measuring in stable way the concentration of important substances present in the liquid such as nitrates, organic carbon and detergents. Through the combination and optimisation of data acquired from optics sensor and electronics sensor, the spectroscope make effective the analysis of the collected champions and translate instantaneously the data collected in an optical spectra.
The instrument can be connected with the main transmission and processing devices therefore transmitting in real time the processed spectra.

Problems to be solved:

WATER MONITOR answers to requirements of new European set of rules about sustainable growth. These rules provide mainly for defence and retraining of environmental goods: water is one of the most precious and important natural resource.
The main aims of WATER MONITOR project are:
- A rational management of the available water resources
- To guarantee the quality of drinking water, as recommended in Drinking water quality directive (98/83/EC)
- Management of water resources that means pollution risk prevention, water loss reduction and reliable supply. These are also explicit objectives of the European Community, fully justified by the warring future of water supply.
The project envisaged fully complies with the European policy towards a sustainable development, improving European technology level by new tools and instruments protecting the environment.

Expected Impacts:

The advantages are clear for all the subjects involved:
- Improvement of water quality standard (usually Consortia of Reclamation): the quality control system installed in the river basin networks will allow warranting a higher security of the drinkable water to customers.
- Reduction of operational costs and potential costs deriving by damages: the utilisation of the in situ instrument capable of control quality and quantity of water will reduce the operational costs with respect to the actual long procedure used to obtain the same data. In fact, several advantages could be foreseen by using the proposed instruments.
- the measurement in situ is more cheap than campaign of withdrawals with high frequency
- the control of the operating costs for water networks and the rational
The benefit of real-time UV-spectrometry concerns both the reduction of risk and the economic efficiency of the respective water uses.
As an additional benefit, trough the detailed knowledge about the evolution of water quality parameters over space and time, but chronic polluter identification can be brought forward.
Due to enormous importance that water protection is assuming nowadays, an ever-increasing importance of water management technology is assured.