Innovative secured water quality monitoring system using remote sensors: case of pangani water basin

Abstract

The decline of water quality in rivers and water basins caused by toxic chemicals, domestic wastes and farm implements has become an ever-growing problem world wide. Population growth, industrial and agriculture activities are the leading factors in polluting water sources. At present, monitoring of water quality in rivers is so important due increase in waterborne diseases and scarcity of clean water. However, acquiring real-time, accurate, reliable and secured data is still a major challenge during monitoring of water quality in most river basins existing in developing countries like Tanzania. This study was conducted in upper Pangani river basin located in Arusha and Kilimanjaro regions, Tanzania. Therefore, this study presents an innovative secured water monitoring, control and management system using remote sensors, which has been developed to monitor physiochemical parameters including pH, turbidity, temperature and dissolved oxygen. In undertaking the study, a qualitative approach was used for gathering system requirements through interviews with Pangani water basin information and communications technology staffs ,water quality engineers and document reviews. From obtained qualitative information the system was developed using dynamic system development methodology. As a result, the innovative, low cost, reliable and secure system was successfully developed consisting of four basic operational modules. The proposed system demonstrated the following results: real-time measurements were taken from various water monitoring stations in the river basin at low-cost and accurate, secure data transmission and storage from remote sensors to a central office management system, measurements are visualized in a simple and clear manner by officials of different level of expertise, the system provided decisions support on the quality of water present in the rivers and water basins by evaluating the measurements and also provided short message services alerts once the standards are exceeded.