Real-time water quality monitoring for distribution networks in IoT environment

Water quality has always been a significant concern worldwide as a large portion of accessible water is either contaminated or polluted, which can spread serious diseases like dysentery, diarrhoea and cholera. Before consumption, the water quality should be tested to reduce the risk of infection. In real-time applications, the traditional approach for water quality monitoring is not appropriate, as on-site water sample collection is often a cost-intensive and time-consuming process. This paper introduces a real-time assessment of water quality parameters in distribution systems employing Raspberry Pi and Arduino development boards. The parameters were chosen based on the different categories identified by the Central Pollution and Control Board, Government of India. An Arduino development board was used at the sensing node for water quality sensor interfacing, data acquisition, and transmission to the wireless sensor network via Zigbee. Raspberry Pi was used at the server to collect data and upload data on the cloud platform. The 'Thingspeak' cloud platform was used for IoT implementation. The results were validated with the reference instrument.