IoT for better water quality

Salinization is a major problem in many places in the world. It reduces the usability of water for families and agriculture and impacts fish resources and biodiversity. In short, salinization has a significant impact on nature and the community in the region. “In the past, charting this problem required a great deal of manual work,” says Didier Ongena, general manager at MicrosoftBelux. “Researchers had to collect water samples manually and take them to the lab for examination. It was a slow process that was not conducive to fast intervention on the ground.”

Together with Proximus, Codit and imec, Microsoft cooperated on a pilot project that offers a ready-to-use kit – including all the hardware and software – so that researchers can monitor the water quality in a given region in real time. Sensors continuously measure the composition of the water and pass on the data to an IoT platform via the LoRa network. “Climate change is happening,” says Didier, “but new technology – like IoT – is contributing to the search for solutions.”