The Internet of Water is Here

I have a new post up on the WWF ClimatePrep blog! It's on the internet of water - featuring the work of Branko Kerkez's lab at the University of Michigan, the Real-Time Water Systems Lab. His remote-sensing network-of-gadgets could play a big role in pushing ahead a city's capacity to reuse stormwater, something desperately needed in Los Angeles, where the majority of the city's stormwater goes directly into the ocean, but could supply the city with all the water it needs if it could be captured and redirected.

Here are some stills from an August 2016 video explaining the main pilot project Kerkez's lab is doing in Ann Arbor, Michigan:

An example of a read-out from one of the remote sensors installed by the Real-Time Water Systems Lab team. This is a smart phone displaying data fed to the internet at a one-minute resolution.

The installation of a sensor at Ellsworth Pond, Ann Arbor (2016).

There's so much unrealized potential for creating "smart" (or "smarter") water systems: this is just a small step in that direction.

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Update: WWF's ClimatePrep blog apparently went defunct in 2018 and may not be revived.  I'm updating this blog's links to ClimatePrep to snapshots on Archive.org (where available). Some articles look OK there, some not so OK. For a readable version with images intact, see my ClimatePrep articles as reconstructed on this blog:

• Head in the Clouds: The Dream of Harvesting Water from Fog
June 08, 2017

• Story Maps: A Rising Star of Climate Change Communication
April 10, 2017

• The Sea Level Rise Solution that is as Charismatic as Mud
February 17, 2017

• The Internet of Water - October 31, 2016

• Sea Level Rise Seen with New Eyes: the OWLs of San Mateo
August 30, 2016

• California: The Rebeavering
May 22, 2015

• Government Folly in the Face of Climate Change
March 19, 2015

• In the Heat of the Moment
December 02, 2014

• California’s Adaptation Clarion Call
September 02, 2014

• Farmland in Flux
July 8, 2014

• Honest Conversations: Climate Change and Uncertainty
December 12, 2013