Smart technology for water quality control: Feedback about use of water quality sensors

Water distribution networks can be subjected to accidental contamination or malicious attacks which could cause serious perturbations in the water quality. Such critical events threat the human health. Water utilities are concerned by the control of water quality. However, the traditional methods frequently used, are based on laboratory analyses and take several days. To prevent earlier water quality degradation, a real-time monitoring is required. The implementation of the smart technology in the distribution networks ensures a rapid detection of abnormalities. Since the use of this technology is recent, it requires a field application to evaluate its feasibility. This paper presents a field study of the use of this technology in a project conducted at the campus of the University of Lille within the European project “SmartWater4Europe”. The campus is equipped with two types of sensors: S: :CAN and EventLab. S::CAN measures multiple parameters such as turbidity and free chlorine, while EventLab measures the variation of the refractive index. We present in this paper the feedback of these smart devices, the analysis of water quality signals and finally a comparison with laboratory tests.