Sensor networks for hydrometric monitoring of urban watercourses

Water quantity and quality monitoring of urban watercourses have begun to evolve from traditional approaches based on manual observations to more examples of smart sensing based on Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). However, there is an urgent need to leverage the low-cost sensors and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to improve the spatial and temporal density of hydrometric observations. Small urban streams are challenging to monitor because of their rapid change and highstream flows during storm conditions. Here, we propose a low-cost outdoor IoT system with real-time hydrometric reporting. The proposed sensor network consists of power-efficient embedded nodes linked to a non-SQL database. The study is a part of the Intelligent River research program at Clemson University (Clemson, SC, USA). The designed network consists of either LoRaWAN or LTE CAT M1 communication protocol. We evaluate Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR) of these sensing nodes to ensure our designed network is resilient and has fewer packet drops. The LoRaWAN nodes have an average PDR of 94.14% while the LTE CAT M1 nodes have an average PDR of 99.7%. The proposed system demonstrates a resilient wireless network for urban storm water monitoring.