Development of IoT-based water reduction system for improving clean water conservation

Abstract

Water is one of the basic necessities of life; however, due to the increased growth of population and without any changes of people's current water consumption rate the world would face water scarcity in the near future. Developing tools and techniques that aim to combat the loss of water quantity becomes a priority action due to it can provide actionable information to the community in its contribution to clean water conservation. In this study, the IoT-based water reduction system has been developed to measure water volume at three household appliances (washing machine, shower, and toilet) by installing flow sensors to those of each pipeline. Each sensor was connected to a microcontroller that sends water volume data and it will be stored in the cloud server. This technology could help users in reducing clean water consumption by: alarming user whenever water volume reaches 75, 85 and 95% of the limit volume for each showering session by installing a buzzer to the shower's pipeline; limiting the water used for the toilet flushing by installing a solenoid valve for the toilets' pipelines; and allowing users to access the information of all water consumption through Android-based mobile application. Through this study, IoT technology has great potential to support clean water reduction strategy due to it could save clean water up to 402 l monthly. Application of IoT technology can be started to be installed in such a small house or apartment in which the user can directly monitor their water consumption.