A group of U.S. researchers is working on a system to map surging pollution trends in the Godavari.
What is the project about?
The exercise is part of a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation project.
It is to support the programme of the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) to provide city-wide sanitation improvements in urban Andhra Pradesh.
The team’s long-term objective is to inform State officials and citizens of a probable spike in levels of dangerous microbes or effluents.
The project has identified two “hotspots” of pollution.
What methods are used?
The methods includes satellite-monitoring to collect water samples.
It also uses special sensors to measure bacterial and chemical pollution.
Cloud-based data collection and real-time mapping is also used.
The sampling exercise measures parameters such as total dissolved salts, nitrate, pH, temperature, turbidity and electrical conductivity.
These are then relayed to map environmental parameters for analysis.
What are the advantages of this project?
It is accesses “raw data” that could be used to inform the efficacy of a proposed faecal sludge treatment plant
It also can be used to analyse behavioural interventions including incentives or punishments to restrict activities that pollute the river could actually work.
It can detect and anticipate pollutants that enter the Godavari.
It can develop an economical river water forecast system.
In advanced stages, low-cost sensors can be used to measure microbial levels in real time.
