Comment Santos City's sensor grid (Score 2, Interesting) 51
In Santos city, São Paulo-Brazil (yes! Where the big soccer player named Pele came from), we have a similar product, which is operating for 4 years and working fine! As part of city is localized over an island, with an average of 2 meters of height, it had built a network of drainage channels crossing the city, discarding the excess of pluvial waters to the Atlantic Ocean.
This network of channels was done in the early XX century by Saturnino de Brito, making the city the best in wastewater/drainage infra-structure of the country. But these channels, that looks like artificial rivers, has been used by clandestine wastewater links that makes the water contaminated, decreasing the environmental condition of the water which would be discarded on the ocean, effecting directly the condition of the beaches and bringing reflexes on the tourism industry of region.
To solve this problem, the seven points of discarding on the beach was blocked by a barrage and the water of channels is redirected to a treatment station before reaches the ocean. However, when the tropical rains hits the region, these barrages must be opened to avoiding the flood on city, so it was implemented a wireless network of sensors in the channels that monitors their depth, and when this depth is approaching a critic value, the barrages are opened automatically.
This is an example of use case of a first world science and technology issue to solve, in practice, the environmental condition, realized by a third world city government.
Check it out at http://www.santos.sp.gov.br/
Eduardo Molinari
Swell Technology & Oceanography
Santos - Brazil
This network of channels was done in the early XX century by Saturnino de Brito, making the city the best in wastewater/drainage infra-structure of the country. But these channels, that looks like artificial rivers, has been used by clandestine wastewater links that makes the water contaminated, decreasing the environmental condition of the water which would be discarded on the ocean, effecting directly the condition of the beaches and bringing reflexes on the tourism industry of region.
To solve this problem, the seven points of discarding on the beach was blocked by a barrage and the water of channels is redirected to a treatment station before reaches the ocean. However, when the tropical rains hits the region, these barrages must be opened to avoiding the flood on city, so it was implemented a wireless network of sensors in the channels that monitors their depth, and when this depth is approaching a critic value, the barrages are opened automatically.
This is an example of use case of a first world science and technology issue to solve, in practice, the environmental condition, realized by a third world city government.
Check it out at http://www.santos.sp.gov.br/
Eduardo Molinari
Swell Technology & Oceanography
Santos - Brazil
