Page 35 - Shaping smarter and more sustainable cities - Striving for sustainable development goals

science in terms of utilizing, adopting and integrating advanced information technology (IT) remains
in the developmental stage.

Water pollution, water wastage, supply and transportation of portable water and the cost
associated with the overall water management are some of the issues that challenge the water
41
sector . Lack of awareness of the problem, inadequate information, and difficulties in the ability to
demonstrate investment returns are driving governments across the globe to integrate advanced IT
42
techniques and infrastructure to improve the management of water resources .
Smart water management systems use and apply ICT in the development and delivery of solutions
to provide access to safe water, manage demand and supply, and develop a pricing mechanism.
Examples include:
 Providing continuous monitoring of water quality and availability via smart sensors
 Improving water and energy efficiency
 Enabling better overall water management

This acts as an important factor to connect the problems of consumers with the potential answers
of the service providers.
Recognizing that the availability of water has become critical, the Focus Group on Smart Water
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Management (FG‐SWM) was established by the ITU‐T TSAG meeting in Geneva, 4‐7 June 2013,
with ITU‐T Study Group 5 as its parent group. The FG‐SWM had its first meeting in Lima, Peru, in
December 2013.
With urbanization, the problem for sustainable water (environmentally and financially) and
sanitation services is becoming a major challenge for cities. ITU aims to acknowledge the water
management problems faced by cities and position the implementation of smart water
management (SWM), using ICT as an enabler to address, manage and provide potential solutions to
alleviate challenges.
The integration of such technologies is adapted to monitor water resources and to understand
problems in the urban water sector. All aspects in a city's water system are managed by prioritizing
and managing maintenance issues as well as data.

In order to realize these opportunities in cities, the FG‐SWM is developing a technical report that
emphasizes the need for careful design and proper coordination among all relevant sectors on SWM
technologies such as:

 Smart pipes and sensor networks
 Smart metering
 Communication modems

 Geographic information systems (GIS)
 Cloud computing
 Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA)

 Models, optimization, and decision‐support tools
 Web‐based communication and information system tools

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41 http://water.org/water‐crisis/water‐facts/water/
42 http://www.globalissues.org/article/601/water‐and‐development
43 http://www.itu.int/en/ITU‐T/focusgroups/swm/Pages/default.aspx

ITU‐T's Technical Reports and Specifications 25