Challenges and opportunities of automation system for water and waste water applications

Water is the most abundant, most used and most depleted resource today and hence checking of its wastage and controlling its contamination are the objectives of nations worldwide. The usage of water in households and industrial activities is increasing as the global population trends are on a constant high. Exhaustive human activities have led to a serious depletion of the ground water table which has further resulted in water scarcity and unauthorized water use. Inefficient agricultural activities and unsustainable water usage have led to reduced crop yields. The ageing infrastructure in drinking water distribution networks has led to problems of unmonitored leakage and uncontrolled water flow. Water treatment plants and recycling stations still use conventional water treatment and processing techniques which cannot be mapped well to the growing needs of the world while meeting the environmental regulations. The existing challenges in water management and automation in water industry need to be thoroughly reviewed such that better solution approaches can be coined to overcome the same. These solutions need to be evaluated based upon the savings they yield in terms of reduced costs and human effort such that they can be easily deployed in domestic and industrial applications. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can help to a large extent in achieving these goals.