2015 7th International Conference on Intelligent Human-Machine Systems and Cybernetics

An IoT-basedsystem for water resources monitoring and management

Mo Xiaocong1 Qiu Xin Jiao2 Shen Shaohong1
1 Changjiang river scientific research institute
2 Center of Construction Management & Quality & Safety Supervision, MWR, P.R.C
Wuhan Hubei, China
BeijingChina
e-mail: 395770398@qq.com, 568384862@qq.com 420526299@qq.com

Abstract water resource information on-line monitoring is

basic and important towater resource management. In this
paper, an integrated system based on internet of things (IoT)
for water resources monitoring and management is proposed.
The system consists of three key layers: equipment
perception layer, information transmission layer and data
application layer. In equipment perception layer, Sensor
networkfor monitoring water information is constructed. In
information transmission layer, real-time information
transmission is achieved. In data application layer, water
information are stored, managed, applied and shared on
internet by users. Application shows that our system can
provide real timeand reliable water resource information for
water resource management.

identifies the key parameters used in the water supply

system and proposes the safety analysis methodologies
used for monitoring operation and emergency response.
The real-time monitoring of water resources
information will benefit the water resources management
department and the public. The primary concept of IoTbased real-time water resources information system is to
provide accurate and comprehensive information. The
system are developed thought a three-step operation. First,
some explicitwater resource parameters are defined.Water
quality parameter is defined forwater environment. Water
level and flow parameter is defined for water quantity
management. Second, awireless sensor network forwater
resources information monitoring is constructedbased IoT.
Several reliable water resource measuring instruments are
installed to get and transfer water resources parameters.
Finally, thesystem is developed for water resources data
management and interactive applicationbased onWebGIS
technology.

Keywords- IoT; water resources informaiton; online

monitoring; WebGIS

I.

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, the technologies of Internet of Things

(IoT)are developing very fast and are deemed as one of the
future leading technologies [1]. More and more smart sensor
technologies and systems are being developed for city safety
monitoring and emergency management purpose [2]. Toms
Robles has announced several smart water solutions related
to the smart water management strategy [3]. Yongzhi LIU
presented a Pipe TECH smart wireless sensor system for
online monitoring the water pipe lines and detection of
ruptures[4]. The off-line type technology is used widely to
perform periodic inspection of life line infrastructures in
order to detect and locate any possible problem. Sometime
people have to carry some equipment for measurement or
detect problems through visual inspection. Like the
SCADA(Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) system,
it is for public safety purpose will support real-time
monitoring and response to disaster event. With the support
of sensor networks, ubiquitous computing and intelligent
computing, the comprehensive surveillance of those lifeline
systemsoperation status is becoming a reality, or at least
predictablefuture. In the year of 2012, the government of
Beijing citystarted a big city level IoT monitoring project
which covers more than ten emergency management areas
with themonitoring of urban lifeline systems as part of it.
This paper mainly focuses onthe general architecture
of water resources monitoring and management systems,
978-1-4799-8646-0/15 $31.00 2015 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/IHMSC.2015.150

II.

FRAMEWORK OF THE IOT-BASED WATER RESOURCES

INFORMATION MONITORING SYSTEM
Monitoring, management, services
platforms/sublayers

Application layer

Middleware layer

Network layer

Water information
perception layer

Data
acquisition,
data storage

Data
observation

models,
platforms,
Data
services,
application appicatoins

Operating system, database

software,Programming language,
webGIS softwater
GPRS, Wide area network(WAN)

Transport
networks
Access networks

Water level, water flow, water

quality

Devices, sensor,
physical world

Figure.1 Framework of the proposed system for water resources

monitoring and management based on IoT

A. Perception Layer
The perception layer is mainly used for collecting data
andother information of detailed factors of physical world
(targets or tasks) for water resources information
monitoring and management, including real-time datasets,
models/methods, knowledge, andothers. The real-time data
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collection based on IoT is related to multi-sensors,

including RS platforms (i.e., satellites, balloons,aircrafts,
and radar), situ instruments (i.e., situ observation
instruments for hydrological and ecological factors), mobile
(i.e., 2G, 3G, and LTE), IEEE 802.X (i.e.,WiFi, Bluetooth,
and ZigBee), RFID, and other sensors. Theperception layer
connects masses of sensors and devices; the perception layer
relies strongly on the rapid development of sensor
technologies in IoT. In this system, perception layer is
constructed using hydrological measuring equipments,
including watermeter, flowmeter, water level gauge,
hydrological monitoring station, and water quality
monitoring station.
TABLE I.

THE PARAMETERS OF THE EQUIPMENT OF SENSOR

NETWORK

Name
Water quality
monitoring instrument

Flowmeter
Water level gauge
GPS

Monitoring parameters
Dissolved oxygen
pH
Electrical conductivity
Water temperature
Chlorophyll
flow
velocity of flow
water level
The plane coordinates
Altitude

frequency

5 second

1 hour
1 hour
5 second

Figure.2 framework of wireless sensor network

According to sensor network framework, data is collected

by various sensors. The collected data is then transferred to
a
server
by
GPRS-DTU
using
GPRS
communication network and stored on remote terminal
unit(RTU).The data is transferred to. RTU has the
characteristics of data store, programmability and data error
analysis. Therefore, data transmission is interrupted and data
can be obtained by reading RTU.
B. Network Layer
The network layer performs basic functions of data and
information transmission as well as the interconnection of
systems and platforms. The network layer consists of access
networks and transport networks. Access networks are
short-range wireless networks, which consist of Sensors
Area Network (SAN).2G, 3G, WiFi, and ZigBee are
common componentsto support the connection of things
(i.e., sensors, devices, and users) in water resources
monitoring and management.

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363

In the sensor network part, we utilizewireless sensor

networks (WSN) as infrastructures to collectvarious water
resources information data. Recently, many context-aware
systemsthat use embedded sensors have been developed. In
addition,many studies use WSNs, which consist of small
computers equipped with sensors (so called sensor nodes),
to determine the states of the real world more precisely.
In water resources networks,various water resources
measuring instrument is defined as wireless sensor network
node. The remote data transmission network is GPRS.
C. Middleware Layer
The middleware layer is a set of sub-layers for the
management of data, software/tools, models and platforms,
and interposed between the network layer and the
application layer. Real-time operational database (RODB) is
used for efficiently managing massive data generated by
sensors and devices, and it is also used for storing and
managing of models, knowledge ,and other information.
Extractiontransformationloading(ETL) is used to extract,
transform, and load the demand information from the
RODB in the IIS. Once the desired information is extracted
and transformed into the required format, on-line analytical
processing (OLAP) is realized through relational OLAP
(ROLAP) and execute operations including slicing, dicing,
roll up, drill-down, and pivoting. The NAPS is used to
bridge different platforms in IoT sensory environments.
Application gateway (AG), application software for
different platforms and tasks (APPs), and IoT application
infrastructure(IoT-AI) are introduced in the middleware
layer for services and applications. Furthermore, GIS is used
for temporal analysis of datasets. e-Science platforms
consisting of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Data as a
Service (DaaS), Platform as a Service(PaaS), and Software
as a Service (SaaS), are used for computing and analysis in
the IIS. The middleware architectures proposed in the IIS
based on IoToften follow the service-oriented architecture
(SOA) approach, which decompose complex systems into
simpler and well-defined applications and components, with
common interfaces and standard protocols. Interactions
between components, interfaces, applications, and protocols
are implemented by representational state transfer
(RESTful) APIs or Java database connectivity (JDBC)
APIs.
D.

Application Layer
The application layer of the water resources monitoring
system based on IoT consists of application support
platforms and WebGIS-based data application. The
application layer provides the functions of storing,
organizing, processing, and sharing the environment data
and other information obtained from sensors, devices, and
Web services, as well as the functions of taking professional
applications in water resources monitoring and
management, such as hydrological management, water
pollution monitoring (i.e., water quality, etc.), ecological

monitoring, disaster monitoring and prediction, weather

observation and forecasting.
The application layer is the top level and represents the
finaltask of IIS for environment decision management and
planningservice. As the monitoring task is becoming more
and morecomplex and , more data coming from sensors,
devices, Web services requiremore computationalability
for processingthan before.The efficienttechnologiesand
models for processing the data are also required. Cloud
computing new technology for data processing and
computation in the IIS, and can integrate extensibledata
processing, information storage, and other distributed
resources to make them work together.
III.

Figure.4 Statistical report of water consumption

DATA APPLICATION SYSTEM WEBGIS-BASED

Oracle database is used for data organization, storage

and management. There are on-time monitoring water
information data, basic data, water resources spatial thematic
data, basic geographic data, user management data and other
types of auxiliary data.
In application layer, network service for data application
is constructed. Users can get water resource information
service by browser. ArcGIS Server is used to manage
network service. In geographical network information
system, the characteristics include multi-user online access is
permitted, monitoring data expression is in real geographic
space, and multiple data is seamless integrated. In software
visualization interface, Interactive map, attribute information
query and statistics function are developed for users.
Network interactive map function is shown in Fig.3.

Figure.5 Hydrological information on-line monitoring

Figure.3 Network interactive map of monitoring data

Statistics is the main function of the system, the dynamic

monitoring data can be displayed in charts.
The object of statistical statement is the intake dynamic
monitoring data. Dynamic monitoring can be divided into
conventional traffic
monitoring and
real-time traffic
monitoring .
Dynamic
monitoring can
be
divided
into
conventional traffic
monitoring and
real-time traffic
monitoring .
Daily routine monitoring is to receive water monitoring
points, collect water quantity information, and store them
into the database, query and analysis the data. A diagram for
statistical reporting subsystem is shown in Fig.4.
In data application system, water quantity and quality can
be applied by user using browser. The data expression of
network interactive map is shown in Fig.5 and Fig.6. On-line
water quality monitoring data is shown in Table2.

Figure.6 Water quality monitoring

TABLE II.

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364

TYPICAL WATER QUALITY ONLINE MONITORING DATA

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IV.

is a key component and it is critical in modern water

resources management.

CONCLUSION

Water resources information based remote real-time

monitoring is a routine work to carry out fine water resources
management, and is typically used to assessing the three red
lines which are put forward by Chinese government to
strengthen the management of water resources. In this paper,
according to the requirements, an automatic water
information monitoring system based IoT is constructed
using techniques of sensor network, wireless communication
network, Internet, database and WebGIS. And in this system,
water resource information acquisition, transmission
and remote monitoring data receiving and application are
integrated through software and hardware.
In the perception layer, a water information sensor
network consists of water quality and water
volume detection instruments. Typical flow meter, water
quality detecting instrument, water level gauge is selected to
get water resource information. Communication protocols of
instruments are is interpreted by programming. In addition, a
programmable RTU is produced by researchers to obtain and
transfer automatically the water parameters, such as water
level, flow, and water quality.
In the application layer, receiving, monitoring data
storage, management and application functions are
integrated. Spatial database and WebGIS technology are
introduced to the data expression, GIS powerful
visualization, interactive applications, the realization of
water resources monitoring data and related data
management in the network environment of the geographical
space expression and interactive use.
Water resources information can also be applied by
administrative department and the public using internetbased data application system. Experiment and
actual application results show that information technology

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work is supported by Changjiang river scientific
research institute fund programCKSF2015019/KJ, the
national
science
and
technology
support
program(2013BAB05B01), Governmental public industry
research special funds Dam Management and Emergency
Response System Software Development(201201051).
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