Wastewater: “wastewater treatment as a water use because it is so interconnected with the other uses of water. Much of the water used by homes, industries, and businesses must be treated before it is released back to the environment. “
Technology Solution Agua Nueva
Lower cost and more efficient
Better quality of the water treated
It uses generation of ultra-filtering and microfiltering membranes
Biological treatment of wastewater to be able to use for watering
Wastewater processing companies
Provide to the farmlands throughout the United States
It can help water shortages
Redirect the water previously used for irrigation to areas in need of water supply
Can reduce the water bill for the residence and farmland for the surrounding areas
(1) Sustainability Problem: Water Per the UN, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) remains one of the world’s most water-scare regions, with 17 countries considered below the water poverty line. Around 1.1M people lack reliable access to water and 2.7M live in regions where water scarcity exists for at least one month of the year.
(2) Water scarcity is an issue – analysts predict that water scarcity may contribute to future conflict in the region.
Agriculture comprises of 80% of the water usage in the MENA region; often the cultivation of crops, specifically citrus fruit in rural Morocco, has depleted the natural groundwater reserves and aquifers at a rate faster than replenishment
Seawater desalination and dams are the current tools used to address water scarcity in the region, however they come with several negative externalities
In Morocco specifically, the NGO Dar Si Hmad has partnered with German WaterFoundation to utilized their CloudFisher fog-harvesters, which use no energy, to collect up to 600L+ of drinking water per day per net*
The CloudFisher technology can withstand win speeds up to 120kph while catching water droplets in the air that (often) comply with WHO drinking water standards*
(3) Stakeholders: Stakeholders include NGOs that provide local solutions to rural farmers and villages in the MENA region. An example of this in Morocco is Dar Si Hmad for Development (NGO) connecting the CloudFisher fog-harvesters (local solution) to 16 villages in rural Morocco. Additionally, Governments and Ministers are stakeholders as “water is the lifeblood of civilizations that shape economies, as said by Reem Al-Hasimy, UAW minister of state.
(4) Deployment/Adoption/Implementation: Given that the focus of this is to drive end-user (customer) adoption, the below does not contain steps to fix the broader water scarcity problem across MENA; additionally, influencing government will delay broader adoption but is needed to create a robust market.
Educate communities and farmers about the importance of water, specifically the importance of protecting water supplies, to help introduce good conservation habits and available technologies
Pilot the CloudFisher technology in communities, collecting data around environmental conditions (weather, air temp, etc.), water collected, time spent by community to harvest, etc.; attempt to create a business case as to what the technology actually achieves (is it time saved, money saved, lives saved, etc.)
Explore conversations with government to discuss the importance of water scarcity in the MENA region, the success of the pilot program, the impact of international trade on water scarcity; propose a potential export tax through policy that could be used to provide solutions such as CloudFisher to farmer villages, in an effort to provide drinking water
With a growing population and an increasing demand for food, agricultural systems and water systems are becoming increasingly pressured. With such mass production, the agricultural industry is shifting towards more automated systems to improve efficiency. That efficiency and automation must also be applied to water use, as water becomes more and more scarce.
This second generation CropX is a soil sensor that transmits information on the soil moisture of a particular field to a mobile device. It sends out alerts so that farmers are aware when their fields are getting too dry and need to be watered. Farmers can then turn on their irrigation systems (also from their devices) until the CropX sensors tell them that the field has been sufficiently irrigated. This efficiency ensures that plants are not being overwatered, that there isn’t an unnecessary amount of water being wasted, and allows farmers to scale up their production since they no longer need to check all the fields themselves but can receive relevant information on the go.
The improvement with these second generation sensors is that they can be installed by the farmers themselves and take less than 5 minutes to set up. This makes the sensors much more user friendly and easy to manage. Older sensors took about 20 minutes per sensor to install and were much more complicated.
Problem: Water is becoming a scarce resource and certain communities are already experiencing how water shortages is affecting their quality of life. In California, for example, which experienced a 4-year drought, was exposed to strict regulations regarding ‘unnecessary’ water use (e.g. lawn irrigation). As water becomes even less available, such concerns will become more severe, however, certain technologies are trying to find ways so that people may not need to sacrifice their lifestyle to such extreme extents, but rather try to use the water that they have more efficiently.
Solar Sync ET does just that: it is a smart irrigation control system that uses a weather sensor and calculates evapotranspiration so that it can adjusts irrigation timers/controllers based on the daily local weather conditions.
Using the temperature, sunlight, and its calculated evapotranspiration rate, the Solar Sync adjusts sends signals to the timer and tells it how long the irrigation system should run for.
According to the website, this technology is compatible with most of the company’s controllers and can be used for residences, businesses, and even municipalities.
Next steps for this company would be to consider making this technology compatible with other sensors. While it is a business decision to make it only compatible with its other products, it might be another business opportunity to expand this sensor to other brands as well.
Additionally, the company should look to market to businesses and municipalities, who will especially feel the impacts of stricter water regulations and who will be looking to invest in technology that allows them to maintain daily activities with little interruption.
Finally, the company should especially be marketing in areas of drought or water shortages as these are the areas most pressured to invest in solutions.