Environmental Monitoring

Environmental Monitoring

Environmental monitoring is defined as the context of processes and activities that are required to characterize and monitor the quality of the environment.

The Internet of Thins (IoT) has a large role to play in environmental monitoring. The requirements and the appropriate technologies are different depending if applications are in cities or in woods, rivers, lakes and oceans.Urban IoT sensor enabled devices can help monitor the environmental impact on cities, collect details about sewers, air quality, traffic, structures, and garbage.

Outside cities environmental protection applications include monitoring air or water quality, atmospheric or soil conditions, monitoring the movements of wildlife and their habitats. Moreover there is an ever growing need to predict tsunamis or earthquakes, monitor nuclear disasters, dangerous chemicals & gases emissions and create early warning systems  for emergency services to provide effective aid.

For all the above remote surveillance and remote sensing devices are required utilizing the latest telecom technologies.

As an example, air quality measurements include concentration of pollutants as ozone, fine particulate matter (PM), nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, total reduced sulphur compounds, etc. In most countries Air Quality Standards are set on the concentration limits of these pollutants. Monitoring of weather is also critical in terms of understanding pollutant formation, dispersion, transport and removal.

Impact measurements in rivers and lakes provide data on parameters such as pH, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, turbidity, color, etc. Semi-continuous and continuous monitoring equipment with programmable sampling at fixed or variable time intervals or in response to an external trigger, e.g. from a rain gauge.