Toward proactive management of stormwater control measures using low-cost technology

Maintenance of stormwater control measures (SCMs) is perhaps the biggest threat to their adoption and performance. Assuring long-term performance which matches the design intent requires suitable monitoring, at the right place and right time, to intervene before malfunctions occur. Doing so has traditionally been very expensive and labour-intensive. The advent of low-cost sensors, however, opens up the potential for entirely new approaches, where numerous sensors measure various aspects of SCM state and performance, generating alerts to those involved in their maintenance. Such sensors could control changes to system configuration to optimise performance relative to (i) operating conditions and (ii) maintenance state of the system. Delivering on this potential will require learning from other related applications of such technology, delivering solutions that match the specifics of stormwater management. Low-cost sensor networks could finally deliver effective pro-active management of SCMs.