A major challenge for South Asia is managing the pollution of its seas, lakes, rivers, and ground water. There are various technological innovations that are being utilized to reduce, monitor, and prevent pollution in specific countries and across the region and other areas that can be replicated, a few notable ones are:
Using Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Fluid Robotics in a startup India is helping cities take control of water pollution caused by untreated wastewater entering lakes, rivers, and ground water. In-pipe robotic mapping and assessment tools to detect leaks, monitor wastewater networks and prevent pollution runoff. A flagship pilot diverted 650+ MLD raw sewage from rivers.
Plastic free Rivers and Seas for South Asia Project
This project is to strengthen innovation and coordination of circular economy solutions to plastic pollution flowing into South Asian Seas. This is a partnership between the World Bank, Parley for the Oceans, and the South Asia Cooperative Environment Program. The project aims to achieve its objective in 4 components: regional competitive block grants to reduce plastic waste, leveraging private sector engagement and solutions, promoting educational partnerships, awareness and behavioral change, strengthening regional integration and project management.
More Innovation in Plastic Waste Management in rivers and oceans
There are many initiatives (e.g. PlasticBank) setting up innovative frameworks to collect plastics in a way to have socio-economic and environmental benefit.
Others are trying (e.g. using booms ) to collect plastic waste and abandoned fishing gear using booms to coral such detritus in areas such as the largest accumulation of plastic in the world’s oceans called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch caused by an ocean gyre (whirlpool) that is three times the size of France!
Lost and abandoned fishing gear could be a significant part of the ocean litter that have many adverse impacts. A new development in using disposable fishing gear appears promising as outlined in the video below.
A danish developed water drone, known as the Waste Shark, developed to remove Marine waste plastics, incidental floating debris and flood debris, each remote-controlled Waste Shark has the capacity to remove 500kg of waste per day. The drone also collects and sends real time water health quality data and depth information.
Drones are also being used to monitor water pollution in several rivers and lakes, from capturing large numbers of detailed images to quantitative measurements of hydrometric and ecological data, in addition in other parts of Asia, the Mekong River is being monitored for plastics with drones and also with a Japanese developed device called an Albatross to trap and study how much microplastic is getting into the river.
XWater storage provides a system for addressing, the variability with water resources. It is critical for increasing water, energy, and food security, and help countries to adapt some of the impacts of climate change. Rainwater harvesting, soil water storage ponds, reservoirs, and groundwater banks to store water from times of excess for potable water use, generation of electricity and irrigation during droughts ( Scanlon, Smaktin ).
Using geospatial data, the UNDP has since 2017 helped repair 33 of Sri Lanka’s ancient intricate tank systems. Geospatial data is also being used to locate monitor and analyze water storage data. IoT is helping monitor and get information on reservoirs, water managers can deploy a variety of sensors to determine in greater detail, water storage levels and other related data from lakes or reservoirs.
Disruptive technology is also changing rainwater harvesting, in parts of Africa, UNEP and UNESCO have developed a mobile app, the RWH (Rainwater harvesting) Interactive Tool to help citizens, with the data collected across weather stations across the region, after citizens input some basic information about their location and size of roof, the app can estimate the amount of rainwater that can be harvest in the area and the quantity needed for a family, as well as providing information on the size of the harvesting system and its associated cost.
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To improve Transboundary water management, there are a range of tools based on Artificial Intelligence techniques, such as machine learning and deep learning that that are becoming available for the efficient management of these watersheds and aquifers. Current and accurate information systems that provide water availability and demand can help to increase the accuracy of models to determine the impacts of potential changes in the management and use of shared watersheds and aquifers. Currently being piloted at the Ramotswa Aquifer in Southern Africa, it is expected that AI will enable improved databases to reveal patterns for water sustainability, facilitating improved management and contribute to harmonized policies.
Current and accurate information systems that provide water availability and demand can help to increase the accuracy of models to determine the impacts of potential changes in the management and use of shared watersheds and aquifers. Currently being piloted at the Ramotswa Aquifer in Southern Africa , it is expected that AI will enable improved databases to reveal patterns for water sustainability, facilitating improved management and contribute to harmonized policies.
XWater is a critical input for agricultural production and plays an important role in food security. Irrigated agriculture represents 20 percent of the total cultivated land and contributes 40 percent of the total food produced worldwide. (World Bank). South Asia's agriculture sector is adapting to the disruptions and innovations caused by emerging technologies such as IoT, AI and drone technology, which have greatly boasted precision farming such as smart real time sensors, interlinked devices etc. which are enabling real time data generation to optimize resources, with little human intervention.
Precision irrigation employs smart sensors, variable rate application and data from irrigation flow meters in crop fields, for information about soil conditions, use of drones for imaging of fields and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for interpreting data and modeling, facilitates the efficient use of limited water resources and increase productivity. In India, Netafim, runs 4 precision irrigation projects across 100 villages which have positively impacted 60,000 farmers to maximize their crop yields, while reducing the water and fertilizer consumption.
SatSure (India): Satellite imagery and analytics as a forecasting decision support tool for agricultural, irrigation and water balance applications. 50 million hectares monitored weekly through initial projects in India.
Floating Agriculture
Bangladesh has pioneered the use of floating gardens to grow vegetables based on the resurgence of a traditional practice to improve climate resilience.
XThe lack of timely information on water quality and quantity has long been a challenge in decision making for water resources globally, the use of technology can automate effective monitoring and provide accurate data for better planning, for effective decision making at all levels. Artificial intelligence and big data provide a means for real time monitoring and analysis of data, which can be accessible via smartphones and other platforms for policy makers and citizens. The use of Internet of things (IoT) based sensors and remote sensing/imaging technologies such as satellites and drones for measuring ground water can be scaled up, to give accurate status of water resources and how to allocate it for the needs of citizens. Analytics data gathered from customers combined with smart metering technologies can be leveraged to align demand with supply, while identifying issues such as customer side leakages.
XWater governance is one of the critical areas within the sector for the improvement of sustainable development of water resources and services. Governments and water utility companies and other stakeholders need to be able to accurately assess the state of their finite water resources, using good practices and developing practical tools to formulate policies for fair and equitable access to water resources for citizens. Technologies such as remote sensing, cloud computing big data and the internet of things are now enabling access to large volumes of information and data, that can be used by decision makers to understand threats to water related ecosystems and track changes in the ecosystem over time.
A partnership of the UN Environment, Google and the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC), together with NASA,, and the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). Fresh Water Ecosystems, provides accurate, up-to-date, high-resolution geospatial data depicting the extent freshwater ecosystems change over time. Google will periodically produce geospatial maps and data on water related ecosystems, using massive parallel cloud computing, the open access format of the Fresh water Ecosystems will drive more action in into protecting and restoring fresh water ecosystems and for countries to track their progress towards, achieving the Sustainable Development Goal Target 6.6. water data is available on national, subnational and basin levels.
Use of google earth observation also provides numerus opportunities for disruption in the Watershed space. Many companies today are leveraging technology to boost production in agriculture with less resources through data-driven smart agriculture. For example, SupPlant is using artificial intelligence to analyze sensors generated data from crops, which is then used in creating an autonomous and optimal irrigation system. This ensures healthy and robust harvests with minimal water usage. Another such example of optimization in irrigation is Irriwatch, a company providing detailed soil water potential and soil moisture data in the root zone using satellite remote sensing technology along with an estimate of actual crop evapotranspiration and crop production. In addition, many companies today are using machine learning to close a critical data gap that prevents financial institutions from lending to creditworthy smallholder farmers. One such example is FarmDrive in Kenya, which helps generate real-time credit reports for small farmers by collecting expenditure and revenue data from farmers via SMS and combines it with satellite imaging, remote sensing technology and alternative data points (e.g., soil analysis, weather forecasts) to create detailed yield estimates and assess credit risk. Credit reports so generated help the creditworthy smallholder farmers to access loans from financial institutions and agricultural input providers via mobile phone.
Some of the ways in which watershed planning and management could be different in future include:
A new generation of global data/analytic services that can be adapted to dashboards and decision support tools at different scales (e.g., region / country / state/ local / community levels or basin / sub-basin / micro-watershed levels). New ways of communicating with communities (including soliciting citizen inputs, reviewing information together using interactive tablets, phones, etc.)
However, there could also be new challenges in the form of privacy, cybersecurity which need to be considered and planned for and changes in jobs as many traditional activities become automated or obsolete due to the changes in technology.
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