Drought and water shortage have swept the world. Can intelligent water meters become the "magic weapon" of water saving?

Water is the most important and overused natural resource in the world. According to a report of the World Resources Institute, about 17 countries, with a quarter of the world's population, are facing extremely high pressure on water resources.

Water conservation has become one of the most urgent needs today. At the same time, the low utilization rate of water resources with serious leakage and the backwardness of water management means are also important challenges facing the public utilities of the water department. The intelligent water meter is expected to reduce the impact of water shortage and drought disasters by preventing water waste as much as possible.

A new study from the European Drought Observatory (EDO) shows that 47% of Europe's regions are in the "warning" state of drought, and 17% are in the "alert" state. Scientists say this is the worst drought in at least 500 years.

A joint venture plan of intelligent water meters for only 40 large water users in Australia has helped save 169 million liters of water in one year, and dozens of large water users have saved up to AUD 50000 (US $33869) in water bills. We can see the effective role of intelligent water meters in water-saving. In residential users, Australia is also actively promoting the installation of household ultrasonic water meters. In 2021, the Southeast Water Company of Australia installed intelligent ultrasonic water meters for nearly 30000 households in southeast Melbourne, helping users save an average of $150 unnecessary costs and reducing water waste.

The traditional mechanical water meter only has basic metering function, which requires manual door-to-door meter reading and cost calculation on a regular basis. This traditional manual door-to-door meter reading method has some disadvantages, such as difficulty in entering the house, meter reading disturbing the people, low efficiency of meter reading, high cost, and failure to detect abnormalities in time, and human factors are prone to cause problems such as missing, misreading, underreading, and human copying.

Intelligent water meter refers to a new type of water meter that uses modern sensing and signal processing technology, communication technology, embedded computer and software technology to measure water consumption, transmit water data and settle transactions. It has the functions of real-time communication, regular reporting, remote price adjustment, ladder pricing, remote meter reading, remote valve control, alarm linkage, etc.

Intelligent water meters play a key role in water saving through early and accurate leakage detection. These instruments are equipped with sensors for leak detection based on the water flow rate at any given time point. This in turn helps the local utility company to track the water consumption of each user, detect the loss or change of consumption level, detect the unexpected drop of pressure in the water network, and identify the leakage before the metering point.