CHENNAI: Want to know the quality of groundwater in your neighbourhood in the city? Soon, this will be possibke by just entering the latitude and longitude of the area on a Google map.
It will give the information such as the nearest point of data collection and time of the data collection and details of water quality and whether the water is contaminated or not.
International Centre for Clean Water (ICCW) at IIT Madras and the Tamil Nadu government have launched a pilot project in the city to map the groundwater quality in the city. Postgraduate students at Stella Maris College will be involved in gathering the samples.
In the beginning, the researchers are planning to collect the data around 90 locations three or four times a year. It will be further enhanced to monitor quality of ground water in real time.
“With the help of students, the quality of ground water can be monitored on continuous basis and real-time monitoring is possible,” said T Pradeep, professor-in-charge of ICCW.
Students can take the image of the water or use the agents to analyse the contaminants. The information will be uploaded on cloud in real time.
The centre is also developing miniature device to test the quality of the tap water and treated sewage water. “It will be a huge volume of data and we will know the real-time information about the city ad its health and population,” he added. It also will give early warning in case of any water borne diseases.
“We have started the project by collecting data manually at three or four times in a year. The data will be collected before the monsoon and after the monsoon to know the impact of the monsoon on the ground water. There will be another data collection in between the monsoon,” said Nandakumar E, chief executive officer of ICCW.
Since collecting the data involves a huge quantity of manpower, the centre is using the college students. For the internship, the students will get two credits.
“Our objective is to give the water data in real time. Anybody can go to the google map and click on the particular spot and know the water quality within a 2km-5km radius of the location,” he added.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/iit-m-centre-to-monitor-quality-of-city-groundwater-in-real-time/articleshow/82228180.cms
