ICT for World Water Day 2007

March 22, 2007: Today not only marks World Water Day across the globe but also the second anniversary of the CSIRO’s solar-powered wireless sensor network, a push forward for environmental and water monitoring.

The wireless sensor network is the longest running of its kind in Australia and provides a key technology in the move towards next-generation environmental monitoring and water management systems. The pilot network provides a test bed and reliability demonstrator of CSIRO’s Fleck sensor technology.

The network is getting a test-run through its deployment at Queensland’s Burdekin Irrigation Area to monitor salinity. Dr Peter Corke, CSIRO Science Leader for Sensor Networks says this project will advise local sugarcane farmers of the point at which water becomes too saline to use for irrigation. It’s knowledge that will ultimately save water, money, crops and time.

“We’ve been working in this area for nearly five years and have engineered our own sensor, the Fleck module, because there was nothing available that met our requirements for low power usage, low-cost, reliable communications, robustness, small size and flexible architecture,” says Corke.

The sensor networks provide a major application for the Water Resources Observation Network (WRON) currently being developed as part of the Water for a Healthy Country National Research Flagship Program.

According to Ross Ackland Team Leader of WRON, Australia requires coordinated water information in order to work towards water reform. “We can’t make water, but we can use it more efficiently,” he says.

Read the upcoming March/April edition of IDM Magazine for more information on water information systems and the CSIRO’s WRON

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