Water Quality Monitoring for Distribution Networks

The Optiqua (Netherlands) EventLab offers a real-time contamination detection system for for monitoring of water quality in drinking water distribution networks. The major components of the Optiqua EventLab system are an online optical sensor, data transmission infrastructure and software for data analysis and event detection. EventLab measures minute refractive index changes in water, which are a generic indicator of water quality because any substance, when dissolved in water, will change the refractive index of the water matrix. EventLab allows monitoring of the water quality for any change in (chemical) composition with the use of a single sensor, without the use of chemicals or other consumables.The EventLab sensors are connected to Optiqua’s event detection software (EventLab Online), a web-based application, that handles event detection and which enables water companies to keep tabs on the water quality throughout theirentire network, in real time. The combination of a low cost, low maintenance, robust optical sensor with a scalable central data processing software, means that EventLab is especially suited for deployment in high density networks.

EventLab has been adopted by a number of leading water utilities, including Vitens (the Netherlands) and PUB (Singapore). With these networks of EventLab sensors water quality incidents have been detected and tracked, which were not picked up by the traditional online monitors in place. Optiqua has teamed up with 20 partners in the Vitens led EC FP7 SmartWater4Europe project, to demonstrate smart water management solutions.