WAMO- Water Monitoring

Our solution tackles two critical challenges in water management: flood mitigation and eutrophication. According to a report by the World Economic Forum, an estimated 1.81 billion people worldwide, constituting 23% of the global population, face significant flood risks. In July 2021, intense rainfall triggered devastating floods in Western Europe, resulting in 184 fatalities. Similarly, eutrophication affects water bodies globally, with approximately 55% of Germany's North Sea waters impacted, as reported by the Umweltamt.

The increasing frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall events are causing rapid filling of water retention basins within the city, posing challenges for flood mitigation efforts. Overflow from these basins poses risks of water inundation in nearby areas, affecting communities and properties. SWIM's application incorporates a dedicated module for flood mitigation, leveraging Earth Observation (EO) datasets and in-situ water level measurements from the patented WAMO technology. This module empowers decision-makers with real-time information for informed decision-making and risk prioritization. Furthermore, the prevalence of eutrophication exacerbates the situation. The community faces frequent lake shutdowns due to harmful algal bloom attacks, impacting the lives of residents and posing risks of severe diseases upon contact with these blooms. Moreover, the proliferation of algal blooms disrupts the ecological balance of the lake, posing risks to aquatic life. The burden of these challenges is directly borne by Darmstadt, Germany's population of approx. 185,000. SWIM's water quality assessment module is specifically designed to combat this issue. By monitoring and reporting critical water quality parameters, with a primary focus on detecting the presence of harmful algal blooms. 

This problem is escalating rapidly due to various factors, including climate change, which leads to more intense and frequent rainfall events, heavy nutrient loading from agricultural practices, industrialization, and urbanization, contributing to eutrophication, and creating conditions favorable for harmful algal blooms. 

WAMO (Water Monitoring) is an innovative hardware platform that helps decision-makers manage their water bodies by integrating real-time water quality and water level in-situ data with satellite information displayed on SWIM (Surface Water Information Management)software, through interactive user-friendly dashboards, ensuring high accuracy in monitoring eutrophication and floods enabling swift emergency response control. The primary advantage of our platform extends its capabilities to address emergency response for floods in urban areas. Leveraging GNSS positioning technology, it provides high-precision water level data crucial for early warnings and emergency preparedness. This ensures that municipalities have the tools, to monitor water levels accurately, allowing for timely response and mitigation strategies during flood events. Additionally, the WAMO solution helps safeguard citizens against Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) through instantaneous warnings, fostering ecosystem protection. By offering real-time monitoring, decision-making support, and early warnings, our platform empowers communities to proactively mitigate the health-related costs associated with illnesses caused by exposure to harmful algal toxins. By integrating both eutrophication monitoring and flood response features, surface water information management becomes a comprehensive solution for ensuring the safety, health, and sustainability of urban environments.

Our solution immediately benefits government departments responsible for flood prevention and environmental protection, with a special emphasis on surface water management. These departments face substantial obstacles in properly preparing for and responding to climate-related calamities like floods. They are now struggling with obsolete infrastructure and manual monitoring procedures, which cause delays in detecting and responding to possible problems. Furthermore, there is frequently a lack of effective communication and coordination across various government entities, which exacerbates the problem.

The target population for our solution includes citizens living in areas vulnerable to floods and waterborne diseases. These individuals face numerous challenges due to inadequate infrastructure and environmental degradation. They often lack access to timely information about potential risks, leading to increased vulnerability during extreme weather events. Furthermore, waterborne diseases pose a significant health threat, especially in areas with contaminated surface water.

Citizens are presently experiencing disruptions in their everyday lives as a result of the frequent closure of swimming lakes and other recreational places owing to water contamination. This not only has an impact on their quality of life but also causes economic losses in local communities. Furthermore, the lack of collaboration between government agencies and local communities stifles effective decision-making and response initiatives.

Our approach addresses these issues by offering real-time monitoring of water quality and flood risk. By utilizing current technology such as satellite data and advanced sensors, we can provide accurate and timely information to both government agencies and citizens. This encourages communities to take proactive steps to safeguard themselves and the environment. Furthermore, our platform promotes communication and collaboration among stakeholders, resulting in a more resilient and sustainable approach to water management. Overall, our solution aims to improve individuals' lives by increasing readiness for climatic disasters, avoiding waterborne infections, creating economic resilience, and encouraging community engagement.

Our team is deeply ingrained within the communities we aim to serve. Our team leader has lived in the targeted community for over 30 years, developing solid ties and understanding the local dynamics. After directly experiencing the challenges of floods and eutrophication, our team leader set out to discover effective answers to these issues while also serving the community.

Similarly, our team members have various backgrounds and experiences. We performed intensive one-on-one interviews with public departments, authorities, and environmental protection NGOs to address the issues faced by citizens as well as the technological impediments that prevent the implementation of their contributions and requirements in creating and developing our solution.

Our initiatives have been often highlighted in the local newspaper in Darmstadt, Germany. Our goal is always to seek continuous input and improve our technology in order to provide an effective, durable, and resilient solution for precision monitoring of water bodies. 

Our involvement goes beyond the first deployment of our system. We promote continual community engagement by providing workshops and attending local government network seminars to create knowledge about water management challenges and ensure that our technology is used sustainably. By building a sense of ownership and empowerment within the community, we want to produce long-term positive benefits on water management practices and environmental care. This collaborative approach has allowed us to co-create solutions that are tailored to the individual needs and objectives of each community, whether it's improving access to clean water, reducing water waste, or mitigating pollution. 

At present, we have successfully developed prototype of our in situ measurement hardware platform called WAMO (Water Monitoring). WAMO is an innovative satellite-based IoT water assessment platform designed for monitoring both water level and water quality. At its core, WAMO employs cutting-edge, high-precision positioning technology utilizing signals from global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) like GALILEO, GPS, and GLONASS. Additionally, WAMO integrates a variety of sensors to measure water quality parameters comprehensively. Acting as a central hub, the system transfers all hydrological data from these sensors to end-users through multiple communication channels, including GSM, LTE, Wi-Fi, SatCom, and LoRaWAN, ensuring flexibility even in disaster or catastrophic scenarios.

Currently, our primary software solution, SWIM (Surface Water Information Management ), is in the development phase, with a minimal visualization dashboard already in place. We are further refining SWIM by creating more customized and focused modules for individual customers. Supported by prestigious organizations such as the European Space Agency (ESA), Water Resilient Coalition (WRC), and CEO Water Mandate, SWIM demonstrates integration with Copernicus data and utilizes information from the satellite-based IoT WAMO in its initial stages. We have undergone several iterations to enhance the presentation of data on its dashboard, which offers various views tailored to the scale of the basin and its sub-basins. These views provide both an overall perspective of the basin or sub-basin and detailed insights into selected water bodies within.

Thus far, we have served a significant pilot customer in Darmstadt, Germany, under a smart city project initiative for Smart Flood Protection demonstrating our hardware platform in a lake. In collaboration with the municipal government of Darmstadt, HEAG initiated the 'Real-time data for early flood warnings' project, aimed at enhancing crisis response capabilities during extreme flood events. This collaboration underscores our commitment to delivering impactful solutions that address critical water management challenges in real-world scenarios

Our primary purpose for applying to Solve is to identify technological issues in further improving our WAMO and SWIM platforms. Solve provides an opportunity to work with like-minded groups to address these difficulties. By collaborating with Solve, we hope to get access to resources and knowledge that will help us scale our service efficiently, traverse legal and regulatory frameworks, and handle cultural and market issues in various areas. Solve's partner network is perfectly aligned with our objective to improve global water management. We anticipate gaining traction through Solve to interact with bigger populations, resulting in a significant impact and increasing climate resilience in cities with our solution.

Our solution stands out with its innovative features. The WAMO offers real-time, contactless water level measurements with precise positioning using GNSS, ensuring accuracy within centimeters. This allows for efficient and reliable monitoring of water levels, enabling timely responses to changing conditions. Additionally, we integrate data from various Copernicus services, providing comprehensive global coverage. This enhances the accuracy and breadth of our data, enabling more informed decision-making. Moreover, our platform calibrates and validates water level and water quality measurements from satellites, ensuring the reliability of the collected data. Furthermore, our solution utilizes LoRaWAN for instant communication and alerts during flood events, strengthening early warning systems and disaster response.

Our easy-to-use system provides interactive maps, customizable visuals, and historical data, helping water management experts understand and analyze the information effectively. Automated alerts and reports simplify the decision-making process, improving overall efficiency and effectiveness in water management. In short, our innovative solution transforms water monitoring and management, offering a complete package that tackles the key challenges in this field.

Our solution has the potential to significantly change how water management is handled globally. It combines advanced technology with user-friendly features and comprehensive data integration. This not only boosts efficiency and effectiveness but also encourages more people to use innovative approaches in the water management field. By teaming up with like-minded groups and stakeholders, our solution could set new standards for water monitoring and management practices, leading to broader positive impacts. Furthermore, by enhancing resilience to water issues and providing timely insights and alerts, our solution can help mitigate the effects of climate change and improve disaster preparedness and response worldwide.

The WAMO + SWIM solution shows great potential impact by delivering real-time alerts for Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs), our system directly protects citizens from pollutants, lowering the risk of associated health problems. This includes respiratory problems, skin irritations, and gastrointestinal issues. 
Rapid response to HABs helps to preserve aquatic habitats. Timely alerts allow authorities to take preventive steps, lowering the long-term environmental impact of hazardous algal toxins. By having access to real-time water quality and level data, communities feel more empowered. Informed decision-making enables citizens and local authorities to
actively participate in protecting and preserving their water resources.
Empowered communities are more likely to adopt sustainable practices, which improves the overall health and resilience of local ecosystems. By preventing and minimizing the health hazards associated with HABs, our technology has the potential to drastically save healthcare expenses. Fewer incidences of waterborne illnesses reduce the load on healthcare systems and increase overall community well-being.  Reducing the occurrence of HABs reduces the need for costly reactive measures, which benefits both public health and the financial resources available for emergency healthcare
interventions. Early warning and flood monitoring capabilities improve community resilience to flooding events. Citizens receive timely alerts, which allow them to evacuate or prepare for future emergencies, decreasing the risk of injury. Proactive flood management reduces the environmental impact of severe weather occurrences in metropolitan areas. Timely reaction efforts can reduce infrastructure damage and prevent long-term environmental harm. 

Our impact goals for our solution are centered around creating transformational changes in water management practices, ultimately leading to enhanced resilience, sustainability, and equity in communities worldwide. Specifically, our impact goals include:

1. Reduce the risk of flood-related disasters: Our solution aims to mitigate the impact of floods by providing accurate and timely data for early warning systems and flood forecasting. We aim to reduce the number of flood-related fatalities and economic losses by improving preparedness and response measures.

2. Improve water quality and ecosystem health: By monitoring water quality parameters and identifying sources of pollution, our solution seeks to contribute to the restoration and preservation of healthy aquatic ecosystems. We aim to enhance biodiversity, protect endangered species, and safeguard the health and livelihoods of communities dependent on water resources.

3. Enhance water resource management and governance: Our solution empowers water management stakeholders with actionable insights and decision-support tools to optimize water allocation, enhance water-use efficiency, and promote equitable access to water resources. We aim to foster collaboration, transparency, and accountability in water governance processes, leading to more inclusive and sustainable water management practices.

To measure our progress towards these impact goals, we track several key indicators, including:

• Number of lives saved or impacted by early warning systems for floods
• Reduction in flood-related fatalities and economic losses
• Improvement in HABs indicators (e.g., levels of pollutants, dissolved oxygen, pH)
• Increase in biodiversity and ecosystem health indicators (e.g., species diversity, habitat quality)
• Adoption of sustainable water management practices by stakeholders
• Increase in community resilience to water-related disasters and climate change impacts
• Enhancements in water governance processes and stakeholder engagement

We also align our impact goals with relevant UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG 13 (Climate Action), and SDG 15 (Life on Land), among others, to ensure our efforts contribute to broader global sustainability targets. By tracking these indicators and aligning our impact goals with the SDGs, we aim to demonstrate the effectiveness and significance of our solution in driving positive change and improving the well-being of people and the planet.

Our solution is built on cutting-edge technology that seamlessly integrates hardware and software innovations. At the core is the WAMO300 system, which uses advanced real-time, contactless water level measurement and precise GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) positioning to provide accuracy within centimeters. This innovative hardware platform enables continuous monitoring of water levels in rivers, lakes, and other water bodies, delivering crucial data for flood forecasting, early warning systems, and effective water resource management. Our comprehensive approach is designed to tackle the pressing challenges of water management faced by communities worldwide.

Our SWIM (Smart Water Information Management) software complements the WAMO300 technology. It integrates various Earth Observation (EO) and geospatial data products, including those from Copernicus services. SWIM uses satellite data to measure water levels, assess water quality, and provide insights into other hydrological parameters. This gives users a comprehensive understanding of water systems and their behavior. The user-friendly interface features interactive GIS visualizations, customizable maps, and automated alerts and reports. This empowers water management stakeholders to make informed decisions and take timely actions to mitigate risks and optimize resource allocation.

The solution team consists of 6 full-time staff members and 1 external contractor.

We have been working on our solution for a total of 6 years, focusing on the development of the hardware WAMO technology. Additionally, we have dedicated nearly 1 year to the development of the SWIM software component.

To achieve diversity within our team, we actively seek out individuals with diverse backgrounds, and cultures, encouraging out-of-the-box thinking and experiences. We believe that diversity enriches our team by bringing different perspectives and ideas, leading to more innovative solutions. Our hiring practices focus on qualifications, skills, and potential, rather than just traditional credentials or backgrounds.

To support our staff, we provide equal access to professional development, training programs, and career advancement opportunities. We strive to create an environment where all team members feel empowered to grow and excel in their roles, regardless of their background or identity. We also offer flexible work arrangements and accommodations to meet the diverse needs of our staff, ensuring everyone can thrive.

Building a friendly and inclusive workspace is an ongoing task that needs everyone on the team to stay involved and dedicated. We encourage open discussion, mutual respect, and understanding among our team members, promoting collaboration and teamwork across all parts of the organization. If we notice any cases of unfair treatment, harassment, or bias, we address them promptly and offer resources and support to staff who may face difficulties or obstacles at work.

The business model for WAMO (Water Monitoring) + SWIM (Surface Water Monitoring) is designed to provide precise and compliant monitoring of water reservoirs, with an emphasis on environmental sustainability. The service leverages partnerships with data suppliers, distributors, financial entities, and international organizations to gather and distribute valuable water data. The activities span from technology R&D and production to licensing, maintenance, and marketing, supported by a solid base of intellectual property, skilled employees, and a well-managed supply chain. The value proposition centers on providing accurate monitoring, enabling CO2 reduction, facilitating CSR reporting, gaining stakeholder trust, and being user-friendly. Customer relationships are nurtured through personalized service, maintenance, and community engagement, with various channels used for customer acquisition and communication, including social media and conferences. The solution targets both public agencies and private enterprises concerned with environmental impact. The financial aspect of the model includes a cost structure covering production, data acquisition, operations, infrastructure, and customer acquisition, while revenue is generated through subscriptions, consultancy, custom reports, and data licensing. This creates a robust business strategy with multiple streams of income, focusing on sustainability and environmental stewardship as key drivers of growth.

Our funding plans have already shown success through different avenues. We've secured grants from reputable organizations like the European Space Agency, Water Resilient Coalition, and CEO Water Mandate. These grants have provided crucial funding for our research and development work. We've also generated revenue by working with government agencies and private sector clients on pilot projects and proof-of-concept initiatives. Additionally, we've received investment funding from angel investors and venture capital firms who see the potential of our water management solution to make a significant impact.

Also, Our financial plan focuses on having different revenue sources to cover our expected costs. First, we'll seek steady grants from organizations, governments, and companies that support our mission. This funding will help with our ongoing research, development, and implementation work. We also plan to earn money by selling our innovative products and services, like our WAMO hardware and SWIM software, to government agencies, private companies, and others in the water management industry. Revenue will also come from service contracts with governments and cities for setting up and maintaining our technology. we are exploring opportunities to raise investment capital from impact investors and venture capitalists who are interested in supporting solutions that address pressing environmental challenges.