Smart water management system for residential buildings in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

As the consumption of water is increasing in arid countries such as Saudi Arabia, water management becomes a big challenge for both the government and society. The challenge also includes supplying continuous water with good quality at minimum cost. In this paper, we introduce a smart water management system that can be used in buildings where continuous flow of water is not available; instead, water is stored in big tanks underground of the buildings. The proposed smart system regulates the water flow between the underground tanks and other tanks on the top of the buildings and controls the water level in these tanks using LoRa communication technology. If the system detects any shortage of water or fault in the system mechanism that affect the water flow, such as faulty valves or defective pump, it deactivates the corresponding part and send an emergency signal to the building’s manager. In the mean time, the system also measures certain important water quality elements continuously and sends warning messages to the building’s manager if the value of any of these measurements exceeds safe levels. The system was run for a long period of time, where all water quality parameters were recorded. The system stopped and sent an emergency signal when water pump was deliberately disconnected but went back to operation after the pump was connected again. The proposed system proved to be a very good solution to the existing mechanically controlled system that most buildings in Saudi Arabia have.