Design a WSN system for monitoring the safety

of water quality in reservoir Aguada Blanca

Author, Freddy Valencia; and Alonzo Lazo

 Water quality monitoring is an important means for obtaining

Abstract: For the application of drinking water safety
monitoring, a sensor node and a gateway node, which were
suitable for setting up a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) in water
supply area, were developed. A sensor node, chip and its
peripheral circuits as the wireless communication module, and
water quality sensors.
It is proposed to apply a system very similar to the Aguada Blanca
dam located in Arequipa, Peru, which provides water for human
use and agronomy, and therefore it is very important to monitor
the water quality. Some change is proposed as a buoy type node
configuration feeding them by solar panels, being able to satisfy
the consumption of the node. Use water quality sensors like
temperature, PH, Ammonium, nitrate, chloride, dissolved oxygen
and turbidity. A charge controller is used. In conclusion, the
design of sensor node and GPRS gateway is suitable for effective
monitoring of water quality of drinking water supply area.
Keywords: buoy type node configuration, flooding routing
protocol, information acquisition, WSN, water pollution, rural
drinking water safety, sensor node, solid particles.
real-time water quality information and plays a crucial role in
understanding water quality trends. It provides an important
scientific basis for water quality management.
The water quality of the reservoir can be monitored by using
a WSN, which is composed of a large number of sensor nodes
relying on self-organization and multi hop. The advantage of
WSN for water quality monitoring is the synchronous
acquisition of multipoint data at large scale with high
intelligence (8). The conceptual architecture of drinking water
safety monitoring system is shown as Fig.1. It is composed of
remote monitoring center and sensor nodes being deployed in
water source area, water supply area and rural water supply
area. The gateway node to the remote monitoring center
through the GPRS network transmits the real-time data of water
quality.
The WSN system used in the reservoir Aguada Blanca is
based on the same system used in waterworks in China. As the
problem lies on water pollution, the situation is very similar.

I. INTRODUCTION
quality is important for people’s health and has an
W ATER
impact in the economic and social sustainable
development. Reservoir Aguada Blanca provides the
source of many applications in Arequipa. Both for human
consumption and for electricity production and many other
purposes. The most common standards used to assess water
quality are related to the health of ecosystems, human contact
safety and drinking water. The reservoir Aguada Blanca has
been accumulating solid particles and becoming a problem for Fig. 1 Conceptual arquitecture of rural drinking watersafety
distributing. Compared to China, a country where water monitoring system in waterworks in China
pollution is easily noticeable, water quality pollution in Peru is
much easier to handle. The key to the safety of drinking water II. MONITORING OF WATER QUALITY IN
is to ensure the safe supply of drinking water. Therefore,
RESERVOIR “AGUADA BLANCA”
monitoring the water quality in «waterworks area can
effectively reduce the risks caused by the pollution. The
monitoring of water quality in reservoir Aguada Blanca in WATER QUALITY
Arequipa is mainly based on the laboratory analysis of
AUTODEMA manual sampling, they take monthly samples It is defined as the condition of water in relation to the
requirements and standards of use by humans or another
For the aim of obtaining the real-time information, water purpose. Chemical, physical and biological characteristics are
uality monitoring plays a key role in understanding of water determined.
quality trend, and offers an important scientific basis for the
management of water quality.
The most common standards used to assess water quality are
related to the health of ecosystems, human contact safety and
drinking water. (1)

Chemicals
• pH, hardness, dissolved and suspended solids,
alkalinity, colloids, mineral acidity, dry residue,
sulphates, chlorides, nitrates, fluorides,
phosphates, silica

Physical
• Color, turbidity and conductivity of water

Biological
• Escherichia Coli, Estreptococos and Clostridios.

Fig. 2 Water quality parameters

**own elaboration

AGUADA BLANCA RESERVOIR

Aguada Blanca reservoir located in Arequipa about 40

kilometers east of the city of Arequipa, distributes water for
agriculture, electricity generation, human consumption and
industrial. Its capacity is 30 million meters cubic Fig. 7 WSN disposition in the reservoir Aguada Blanca
At present, the reservoir is accumulating solid particles that are **own elaboration
deposited in the bottom and that have reached an approximate
height of 6 meters, diminishing their capacity by 30%. HADWARE CONFIGURATION
The advantages of implementing a WSN to monitor water
quality are: The configuration of the node consists of sensors, processor and
memory, final by wireless communication. Everything is
• Monitor and record water quality in real time powered by a battery by a solar panel using a charge controller
• Possibility to monitor the entire reservoir as shown in the figure.
• Ease of deployment
• Economic and effective system
ACA VA LA FIGURA DROGAS DURAS
CURRENT SITUATION IN RESERVOIR

Currently, AUTODEMA is the agency that manages the 1. Node Configuration

reservoir. They take monthly samples of water and analyze
them later in their laboratory implemented in 2016, determining
the parameters of the figure 3.
A buoy type configuration is ideal for calm water applications.
The probe hangs at a distance from the buoy, the buoy has space
to locate the solar panels on the outside and the electronics
inside, which must be fully sealed.

Fig. 3 Parameters studied in AUTODEMA laboratory (1)
WSN TOPOLOGY
The WSN have a star type arrangement, considering that
each node has a reach of 1000m, a minimum of 5 nodes was
determined (although they could be more and in another
arrangement according to requirements), it was arranged that
the gateway be on the ground.
Fig. 8 HCTech hydrology buoy
2. Multiparameter probes
They are probes that have several sensors and that form a
package. They are shown as an alternative to conventional
sensors due to their simplicity and occupied space. They also
present a greater variety of parameters that determine water
quality.
 Table 2
Available sensors in Multiparameter Probes

MANTA SUB2 MANTA SUB4 GEONICA*

TEMPERATURE X X X
PH X X X
Fig 9. CN3791 charge controller
CONDUCTIVITY X X X
SALINITY X X X III. DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION IN
DISSOLVED OXYGEN X X X WATERWORKS IN CHINA
TURBIDITY X X
AMMONIUM X HARDWARE CONFIGURATION
NITRATE X X
CHLORIDE X X The sensor node is composed of the following modules: a
TDG X X processor module, a sensor module, a wireless communication
PAR X module and a power module. The water quality indexes such as
BLUE GREEN ALGAE X X hydrogen ion exponent (pH), dissolved oxygen (DO), ammonia
RHODAMINE X nitrogen and temperature are collected by using composite
TDS X electrode sensors.
SODIUM
CDOM/FDOM X The processor module is constructed of a Texas Instruments
ORP X X STM32F103 micro-controller programmed in C language
*It can select 11 sensor maximum and its peripheral circuits. The sensor node system is controlled
**own elaboration by the processor module, which is responsible for task
scheduling, information processing and hardware driving.
We can monitor most of parameters that are currently analyzed
in the laboratory as temperature, PH, Ammonium, nitrate,
chloride, dissolved oxygen and turbidity.

Table 3 Specifications of water quality sensors

Index Range Resolution Accuracy
Temperature -5 to 50 °C 0.01 ±0,1
pH 0 to 14 unit 0.01 ±0,1
Ammonium 0 to 100 mg/l as Nitrogen 0.1 ±10% of reading or 2 mg/l
Nitrate 0 to 100 mg/l as Nitrogen 0.1 ±10% of reading or 2 mg/l
Chloride 0,4 to 18,000 mg/l 0.1 ±10% of reading or 2 mg/l
Optical 0 to 20 mg/l ±0,1
0.01
Dissolved 20 to 30 mg/l ±0,15
Oxygen > 30 mg/l 0.1 ±10%
Turbidity
0 to 600 FNU 4 digits ±1% of reading ±1 Fig. 2 Hardware structural diagram of sensor node
600 to 3000 FNU 4 digits ±2% of reading
**own elaboration

3. Wireless communication
It uses an A7139RF with frequencies less than 1GHZ. It is
optimized for low consumption (3.8mA) and a voltage of 3.7V
and it is feasible to be powered by batteries. Ideal for WSNs
applications. It can offer 1000m of communication distance
which is correct for the application in the reservoir.

4. Feeding
It uses 3W solar panels of 16X13cm, capable of feeding the
consumption of the 100mW node as well as charging a Li
polymer battery of 4000mAh and 3.7V.The battery can feed the
module alone a total of 148hr in continuous sensing. A CN3791
charge controller is used.
Fig.3 The sensor node with 4 ASI water quality electrodes
The sensors applied are capable of detecting chemical and
physical parameters of water quality, all of which offers an
effective solution to the challenges of automatic water quality
monitoring. The sensor module consists of 4 electrodes for
measuring water quality indexes, which are listed in Table 1.
Table 1 Specifications of water quality sensors

In the wireless sensor network, the wireless communication
module is used to realize the data transmission among sensor
nodes. A low power and FSK-based RF transceiver A7139 is
selected to be the core of the module. This node can offer a great
transmit power consumption, which communication distance
suitable for wide-area is monitoring.
The sensor node needs power supply for the processor
module and wireless communication module, and power supply
for the sensor module. Therefore, a lithium battery is employed.
Two switch circuits of PMOS for power control of modules.
The gateway node is mainly responsible for receiving,
summarizing and transmitting data, and the GPRS network
serves as a data remote upload medium. The gateway node was
composed of the processor module, the wireless
communication module, the serial communication module, the
GPRS module, the storage module and the power module.
Fig. 4 The sensor node of outlet and the
gateway node
IV. CONCLUSIONS
The Aguada Blanca reservoir requires continuous monitoring
as it is a source of water for the population and agronomy of
Arequipa city.
The use of the sensor network to monitor water quality in Shun
Yuan, Maoming city, China, was feasible and showed good
results after one hundred days. Therefore, it is applicable and
ideal for the Aguada Blanca reservoir and in general for all
water supplies.
The data taken by the sensor nodes can be complemented,
compared and verified with those analyzed in the laboratory. It
can be a complementary tool and does not replace the laboratory
in biologic tests
A sensor node with low power consumption and long
communication distance is designed to measure and monitor the
water quality variations in water supply areas. The water quality
data obtained from the sensor module includes DO, pH,
ammonia nitrogen and temperature of water in intake and outlet
of waterworks. A flooding routing protocol is designed for
increasing the reliability of data transmission among sensor
nodes. The experimental results show thatthe design of the
sensor node and the gateway node is suitable for the effective
monitoring of water quality of rural drinking water source.
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