By Ned Madden | TechNewsWorld
IBM has jumped in fully clothed. Big Blue’s Big Green portfolio of smart water services and technologies uses advanced analytics developed by mathematicians in IBM’s labs, as well as the company’s information management, technology services, and business consulting capabilities.
To replace workers dispatched in trucks to check on water quality and levels and look for pipeline leaks and breaks, IBM automates the process with systems to monitor reservoirs, rivers and harbors, placing small sensors in the water and along pipelines right up to homes and businesses. Back-end software analyzes the resulting data and displays it on computer dashboards that enable water managers to monitor their systems and head off problems like leaks or contamination.
The IT giant, determined to expand beyond traditional computer services, is moving fast because it’s seeing Big Water just keep getting bigger. Revenues of the world’s water-related businesses will rise from $522 billion in 2007 to nearly $1 trillion by 2020, according to New York-based Lux Research. The firm’s April 2009 report “Water Cultivation: The Path to Profit in Meeting Water Needs” predicts that a world facing water shortages will need a new “water cultivation” approach characterized by efficiency, reuse and source diversification.
Tools like smart meters that limit lawn-watering to nighttime hours, or sensors that detect leaks in pipes, are just a few of many ways computers can help monitor water use, Lux senior analyst Michael LoCascio said. The real change must come in our mindset about the wet stuff.
“The world will avert crisis by cultivating water as a durable asset rather than throwing it away as a consumable — creating growth opportunities in everything from oxidizing new contaminants to rehabilitating creaking infrastructure,” LoCascio told TechNewsWorld.
Though computers have been used for decades in the large-scale mapping of ground and surface water sources, today’s water crisis has pushed the water industry toward computer automation solutions that range from the largest national and international projects down to the individual homeowner’s front yard.
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