Smart Water Management IoT System — Leak Detection & Pipe Network Monitoring
A LoRaWAN-based water distribution monitoring system for a municipal utility — detecting leaks within 15 minutes across a 250km pipe network, reducing non-revenue water from 35% to 12% in 18 months.
⚠The Problem
A municipal water utility serving 500,000 residents had 35% non-revenue water (NRW) — water pumped into the distribution network but never billed. This included physical losses (pipe leaks) and commercial losses. Leaks were identified only when residents called to report water on streets — by then, significant water and revenue had been lost. The 250km pipe network had no instrumentation.
💡Our Solution
We deployed 400 LoRaWAN monitoring nodes across the pipe network — ultrasonic flow meters at district metering area (DMA) boundaries, pressure transducers at strategic points, and water quality sensors at storage tanks. All data routes through 8 LoRaWAN gateways to AWS IoT Core. A Python ML service applies minimum night flow analysis and pressure gradient analysis to identify leak candidates. When the model flags a probable leak, it calculates the most likely pipe segment from pressure data and pins it on the GIS map. Field crews are dispatched to that location — average leak confirmation time dropped from 2 weeks (passive) to 15 minutes (active detection).
🔗System Architecture
LoRaWAN Flow/Pressure Nodes → Gateways → AWS IoT Core → InfluxDB → Python ML → React GIS DashboardTech Stack
- Ultrasonic flow meter (DN50–DN300)
- Pressure transducer (0–16 bar)
- Water quality sensors (turbidity, pH, chlorine)
- ESP32 + LoRa module
- Solar-powered remote nodes
- LoRaWAN (city-wide coverage)
- MQTT to cloud
- NB-IoT backup for dense urban zones
- AWS IoT Core
- InfluxDB (flow + pressure time-series)
- Python ML (leak detection)
- PostgreSQL (pipe network GIS)
- React GIS dashboard (Leaflet.js)
- Pressure zone heatmap
- Leak probability map
- Water quality trend charts
Key Features
Results Delivered
- Non-revenue water reduced from 35% to 12% in 18 months
- 250km pipe network fully instrumented with 400 nodes
- Leak detection time reduced from 2 weeks to 15 minutes
- 85 leaks identified and repaired in first 12 months
- Water savings equivalent to 2.5 million liters per day
Technologies
Who This Is For
Municipal water utilities, industrial water treatment plants, large commercial buildings with water management needs
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