Smart Solutions for Water and Climate

24 March 2017

This session during the AfriAlliance Conference was for the audience to learn about water monitoring and mapping with the help of mobile devices, tools and sensors, as well as how the quality of the data can be verified. Luuk Diphoorn of the Akvo Foundation and Jeroen Bosboom of Mobile Water Management both gave engaging presentations about the smart water solutions their organisations offer.

The Akvo Foundation

Akvo is a not-for-profit foundation that creates open source, internet and mobile software and sensors. The organisation is an AfriAlliance partner and works with people improving infrastructure and services, for disadvantaged populations. Its open source tools have three main purposes: (i) capture and collect data, (ii) understand this data and turn it into decisions, and  (iii) sharing it with anyone who is interested. Akvo presented two its tools for both qualitative and quantitative monitoring of water data using smartphones, and how they are currently applied to monitor the drought in Ethiopia.

Mobile Water Management

Mobile Water Management wants to drive the complete digitization of field measurement operations in various industries (e.g. utilities, water/flood management) using smartphones. The organisation achieves this by exploiting existing wireless and cellular network and low-cost investment in infrastructure upgrade. Mobile Water Management introduced lessons learnt from the use of smartphone for monitoring in two pilot projects, a water catchment in the Netherlands and the VIA Water project in Mozambique.

Akvo Caddisfly

At the end of the session, the Akvo Foundation gave a demonstration of their sensor technology for water quality testing: Akvo Caddisfly. Akvo Caddislfy is a simple, low cost, open source, smartphone-based drinking water testing system connected to an online data platform. Existing features of the phone combine with software apps and pocket-sized hardware attachments, to conduct reliable tests on water samples and then share this data with the people who need to see it. Currently, Akvo Caddisfly features colorimetric tests such as fluoride and residual chlorine, as well as electrical conductivity and any strip test.