Preface
The well-publicised and growing concerns about worldwide freshwater resources
for human consumption impose increasing attention and focus on the monitoring,
assessment, and protection of these resources. Indeed, information and communication technologies (ICT) are currently playing a key role in the observation of
water systems, both for what are regarded as man-made infrastructures and for
those that are regarded as being water in its natural form.
The wide context covered by ICT implies a very heterogeneous technological
framework, which involves several multidisciplinary aspects, and also
encompassing several application fields. Without seeking to be exhaustive, one
may mention the development of new observational approaches, direct sensing
techniques, sensor networking architectures, data processing and analysis methods,
and integration with large data systems. These are just a few examples of the several
thematic areas that can be individuated. In addition, such wide multidisciplinary
coverage embraces many of today’s hot topics, such as crowdsourced data collection, the internet of things (IoT), and the consequent management and analysis of
big data.
Today, ‘smart cities’ and ‘smart water networks’ are cutting-edge topics in the
technical literature concerning water systems. The practical objectives of smart
water networks (and of digitalisation in general) are essentially driven by the
demand for increased efficiency of whole systems, as a response to increased
consumption scenarios, uncertain climate change, and the relating pressure on the
higher quality portion of freshwater resources destined for human consumption.
The chapters of this book focus on new perspectives for the monitoring, assessment, and control of water systems, offering an updated survey of recent advances
in tools and concepts originating from the ICT sector applied in the ‘smart water’
context. The aim of this book is to present a portrait of up-to-date observational
techniques, data processing approaches, and sensing technologies for water, giving
further particular attention to the implication of multiple data science aspects, e.g.,
data analytics, cloud computing, and machine learning.
ix
The well-publicised and growing concerns about worldwide freshwater resources
for human consumption impose increasing attention and focus on the monitoring,
assessment, and protection of these resources. Indeed, information and communication technologies (ICT) are currently playing a key role in the observation of
water systems, both for what are regarded as man-made infrastructures and for
those that are regarded as being water in its natural form.
The wide context covered by ICT implies a very heterogeneous technological
framework, which involves several multidisciplinary aspects, and also
encompassing several application fields. Without seeking to be exhaustive, one
may mention the development of new observational approaches, direct sensing
techniques, sensor networking architectures, data processing and analysis methods,
and integration with large data systems. These are just a few examples of the several
thematic areas that can be individuated. In addition, such wide multidisciplinary
coverage embraces many of today’s hot topics, such as crowdsourced data collection, the internet of things (IoT), and the consequent management and analysis of
big data.
Today, ‘smart cities’ and ‘smart water networks’ are cutting-edge topics in the
technical literature concerning water systems. The practical objectives of smart
water networks (and of digitalisation in general) are essentially driven by the
demand for increased efficiency of whole systems, as a response to increased
consumption scenarios, uncertain climate change, and the relating pressure on the
higher quality portion of freshwater resources destined for human consumption.
The chapters of this book focus on new perspectives for the monitoring, assessment, and control of water systems, offering an updated survey of recent advances
in tools and concepts originating from the ICT sector applied in the ‘smart water’
context. The aim of this book is to present a portrait of up-to-date observational
techniques, data processing approaches, and sensing technologies for water, giving
further particular attention to the implication of multiple data science aspects, e.g.,
data analytics, cloud computing, and machine learning.
ix