With India focusing on Smart Cities, IoT has a major role to play in various sectors starting from industries to homes : Sukanya Mandal, Data Science Professional and IEEE Member
Can IoT actually solve environmental crises?
The real value of IoT lies in the data. With appropriate sensor data analytics, IoT can help forecast environmental crisis and aid in taking necessary actions.
Polluted air, lack of proper drinking water and industrial waste are some of the major problems of Tier 1 cities. How can Internet of Things help?
IoT has made its way into our daily lives. Having the benefits of connected information is amazing. Why should cities not take the advantage of connected sensor networks to improve its efficiency.
IoT, in various ways aid in mitigating citywide problems - environmental sensor networks deployed across cities helps on monitoring environmental conditions including temperature, air quality, noise, humidity etc. These data collected, can be made available in a public dashboard to the common masses to involve them in controlling adverse environmental conditions and can be further analyzed manage incidents, identify patterns in microclimates and it's overall effect in global climate concerns. In a similar fashion, data collected from these sensor networks can be used to predict adverse environmental conditions and predict the overall capacity of drinking water availability throughout the city.
Deploying smart water solutions can aid in - analyzing smart water treatment solutions, usage of water for fertilization as per requirement, water leakages, predict flood, water quality etc. thus building efficient water management systems, reducing cost in asset utilization, productivity and process efficiencies.
IoT solutions combined with already existing waste management systems aids in reducing labour and building a more efficient waste management system. Data from these smart bins are shared with local authorities, allowing them to enhance efficiency by planning collection routes where and when pickup is needed.
IoT is also helping in mitigating other major problems of Tier 1 cities like parking space, efficient transportation system etc. In India, tier 1 cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi etc experience huge traffic daily. IoT sensors deployed across every traffic signal can actually analyze the traffic and send the outcome to the nearest sensors and the later can redirect the traffic to a different direction thus helping in seamless traffic flow. Also, sensors deployed across cities can help in finding parking spaces available at the closest distance.
Tell us more about how smart devices like smart energy meters, smart water sensors etc. are contributing towards solving environmental crises.
Smart grid makes efficient usage of energy eliminating unnecessary utilization of energy resources thus saving cost and resources. Smart grid helps in efficient transmission and distribution of electric power, quickly restore power failure due to faults, reduces cost of operations, maintenance, management for both utilities and consumers, enhanced security and protection to electric grids. Most importantly, smart grid can integrate with renewable energy sources on a large scale which helps in load sharing and reduction of load on large scale.
Smart devices like smart energy meters gives more accurate billing as it has the capability to send exact meter reading to the supplier. It helps users to better understand their energy usage. Smart energy meters aids in resolving energy which provides low-carbon, efficient and reliable energy. In other words smart energy meters helps in efficient energy management. There are other smart meters that helps in regulating water level, oil and gas level in storage tanks and cisterns. Also, smart meters aid in measuring of water pressure in water transportation system.
Smart water sensors measures water quality - checking for suitability of water for various usage, water leakages, water pressure and can also measure water level - alarming for floods.
There are various other IoT applications - Sensors that can detect forest fire - raising an alarm to take immediate action. Sensors can detect and monitor for combustive gases and other preemptive fire conditions thus raising alarm. IoT can also detect air pollution - carbon dioxide sensors can detect emissions, pollution caused because of traffic etc. IoT solutions had been widely deployed to detect natural disaster so that appropriate actions can be taken at the right time.
In the current scenario, what kind of technologies are being most widely used for environment conservation.
Currently, IoT has just started its journey towards environmental protection. Other environmental technology like hydroelectricity, biofilteration, bioreactor, solar energy, wave energy and other renewable energies, etc. are being most widely used for environmental conservation.
How can general people in their daily lives use IoT as an environment friendly tool?
With India focusing on Smart Cities, do you think IoT can play a big role?
Nowadays technologies are more focused on providing environmental friendly solutions. Bio-sensors are being used by people daily - fitness tracker, health trackers etc. People can use IoT to monitor their daily utility usage habbits and understand their needs, thus reducing consumptions whenever possible. Smart homes can enable people reduce carbon emission to a massive extent.
With India focusing on Smart Cities, ofcourse IoT has a major role to play in various sectors starting from industries to homes. IoT would actually help enable seamless management of cities with less labour involvement. Also, IoT would bring transparency to city governance as open data portal would be open to the common mass and this will empower efficient smart cities.
