Rethinking H2O

Rethinking H2O Podcast

Welcome to the Rethinking H2O Podcast! In this podcast, we explore the human interactions with water. This includes safe water projects in Africa, water restoration projects on the Great Lakes, and surf therapy for cancer survivors. We explore water trends with entrepreneurs, dive into the best books about water and ultimately; get you rethinking H2O to live your best #BlueMind lifestyle.

  1. Internet of Water - Great Lakes Innovation

    26/06/2019

    Internet of Water - Great Lakes Innovation

    What if we could make our existing infrastructure talk to each other to make our communities more resilient? Faced with a water challenges, a few PHD students from the University of Michigan set out to harness data to solve some of the Great Lakes water challenges.  In this podcast, you will hear from Sara Troutman and Gregory Ewing to learn more about how this project came to life.  In 2018 the Water Environment Foundation opened up the LIFT intelligent water systems challenge to rethink the water problem in the Great Lakes region. Due to many stressors in the Great Lakes region, such as aging infrastructure, changing populations, and rapid development, the sewer and storm water conveyance system is strained well beyond its design. As a result, the combined sewer system experiences untreated combined sewer overflows. To combat these persistent untreated outflows, the University of Michigan team engineered a plan to use real-time sensor feeds to control valves, pumps and gates in the existing system, which dynamically reconfigure themselves to changing inputs. Their winning LIFT Challenge submission lays out an algorithm that can be applied to Great Lake Water Authority system and that is accompanied by a real-time dashboard and decision support tool for operators. The web-based decision-support dashboard is a key innovation, giving real-time readouts of measurements from across the storm water system and also providing control recommendations to the user as determined by the market-based control algorithm. Through data and testing, they were able to show that there is a significant opportunity for GLWA to use its current system (sensors, storage basins, pumps, etc.) to maximize storage and reduce combined sewer overflows. To follow the ongoing program, please visit http://open-storm.org/

    23 min
  2. Frictionless Water Transactions

    16/04/2019

    Frictionless Water Transactions

    Did you know that over $15 billion is spent on water infrastructure in the developing world each year and 40% of systems break after 2 years as there is no trackable revenue for maintenance? How do we fix this? eWaterPay strives to solve this problem by offering a pre-payment smart tap that ensures all revenue is tracked and accountable and transparently used by private organizations or governments to pay for maintenance of systems. CEO Alex Burton tells us about how the eWATERpay system is a cheap, simple technology that uses mobile money, near field communication and the Internet of Things cloud server monitoring. Users can purchase credit through several methods, including using the eWATERapp on smartphones, purchasing through mobile money. The credit loads onto their eWATERtag, and eWATERtaps installed at distribution points dispense water and take credit when the user presents the token. The eWATERpay system has helped to solve several challenges. First, water is now available 24/7, which has reduced queues at the tap, and means community members are now free to get water whenever they want. Research by eWATERpay in Gidewari village shows that the average time spent collecting water has reduced from three hours to just ten minutes. Additionally, every drop of water is paid and accounted for, as water is only dispensed once a user presents an eWATERtag at the tap. The money goes directly into an online bank account, and the ‘Essential management model’ means 80% of revenue from water user fees goes to use for operation and maintenance, ensuring the water points keep working. To learn more please watch this video : https://vimeo.com/289269195 Or visit their website : https://www.ewaterpay.com/

    20 min

About

Welcome to the Rethinking H2O Podcast! In this podcast, we explore the human interactions with water. This includes safe water projects in Africa, water restoration projects on the Great Lakes, and surf therapy for cancer survivors. We explore water trends with entrepreneurs, dive into the best books about water and ultimately; get you rethinking H2O to live your best #BlueMind lifestyle.