New Perspectives for Smart Water Network Monitoring, Partitioning and Protection with Innovative On-line Measuring Sensors

Cities are increasingly becoming focal points for economies and societies, largely because of on-going urbanisation and the movement toward increasingly knowledge-intensive economies. Cities must change and develop, and this change must be pursued in a smart way, turning them into “smart cities”. Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) open new opportunities for Smart WAter Networks (SWAN) as a key asset for smart cities. The Ctrl+SWAN (Cloud Technologies & ReaL time monitoring + Smart WAter Network) Action Group (AG) was established within the European Innovation Partnership on Water to promote innovation in the water sector by advancing existing solutions. Combining smart meters and biosensors with cloud computing and innovative software enables new network management schemes. More effective monitoring of quantity and quality variables makes it possible to partition large water networks, thereby improving customer service, maintenance quality, and protection against accidental or intentional contamination. The AG’s vision treats the water network not as a traditional system to which devices are trivially added, but as a SWAN featuring new applications that yield optimal management and protection. After surveying the state of the art of the best technologies already on the market, the paper proposes new perspectives for SWAN monitoring, partitioning and protection with innovative sensors. Each AG partner describes methodologies, best practices, novel devices, and possible integrations among meters, biosensors, models and optimization algorithms. **Keywords:** Smart Water Networks, Online monitoring, Smart sensors, Partitioning, Protection, Control, Sensor network