‘Smart’ water-quality sensor network wins iAward

A smart sensor network that is monitoring the quality of drinking water in south-east Queensland (SEQ) has earned CSIRO one of the Australian ICT industry’s highest accolades.

At the Australian Information Industry Association’s annual awards in Melbourne, CSIRO was named winner of the 2010 iAward for research and development.

CSIRO and Seqwater have developed a large integrated intelligent wireless sensor network, which is monitoring Lake Wivenhoe and its catchment. This supplies the majority of the region’s drinking water as part of the SEQ water grid.

The network consists of 120 nodes, 45 of them floating, and measures water temperature through the water column. Another 70 are land based and collect stock movement and weather data spread across the catchment.

An autonomous solar-powered catamaran, also developed by CSIRO, travels between the floating nodes gathering data and performing maintenance.

CSIRO Senior Research Scientist Dr Matthew Dunbabin said the successful deployment and operation of this proof of concept network bodes well for this platform technology, dubbed iSnet for integrated sensor network, to underpin the next generation of water-quality monitoring systems.

“This is about real-time data collection from the storage to the shore with a level of speed and detail not seen before,” Dr Dunbabin said. “It gives us the capacity to monitor ‘events’ in real time, such as high rainfall, droughts or contaminants entering the waterway.”

“It’s also the first time such a system has been used to monitor greenhouse gas emissions - which is something many businesses are now being asked to report on.”