The case for smarter stormwater management

Stormwater ponds serve a critical function in our water systems. They are the juncture at which stormwater — which collects pollution as it travels over our roads and through our constructed environment — settles and undergoes natural treatment before it returns to streams, rivers, and lakes.

Stormwater ponds are engineered to manage fluctuating water levels, and so also serve an important role in flood management. But despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that they are relatively low maintenance upkeep is often ad hoc, manual, and infrequent.

Current best practice suggests that stormwater ponds be inspected at least annually to ensure excess sediment is removed, in- and outflows are cleared, and that plant and animal life isn’t being adversely affected. But certain jurisdictions have huge numbers of ponds, and even the simple task of taking measurements can be time and labour intensive.

With the changing climate, many jurisdictions in coastal and low-lying regions now face more frequent and severe flooding. That flooding also increases the likelihood of cross contamination between water bodies when stormwater infrastructure — much of which has not been designed to accommodate these shifting baselines — fails.

The financial and ecological costs of such failures can be devastating. In 2020, the World Resources Institute projected that the number of people around the world affected by flooding will rise to 147 million by 2030 (up from 72 million in 2010) and the economic costs will more than triple from $174 billion to $712 billion.

Meeting these challenges will require vast infrastructure changes. But one relatively simple and inexpensive one involves automating how we monitor depth and pollutants in our water infrastructure.

Ioticiti offers one such smart solution. It’s scalable, secure, and more cost-effective than many custom engineered alternatives. Our expert teams install and conduct ongoing maintenance of proprietary scientific grade sensors to monitor key water quality parameters as well as depth changes in stormwater ponds. Those readings are sent over our secure, designated, private network to a digital interface designed for municipal water management teams.

Those teams set the thresholds for depth, salinity, contaminant, and oxygen levels. When those levels deviate beyond those thresholds, the team receives an alert in real time. This system also offers historical data and more comprehensive record keeping so you can see the changes in water levels and pollutants over weeks, seasons, and years.

Such solutions allow for more proactive management of water infrastructure which is too often reliant on reactive decision-making to mitigate damage and respond to emergencies.

Find out more about Ioticiti’s solutions and whether they may be right for your municipality or private enterprise.