Smart water management employs information and communication technology as a means for responding to fundamental water management challenges. Smart water management requires integration of a range of systems (across technical, environmental, social, and beyond) in order to monitor, control and regulate water usage and quality. The technology commonly used includes:
- Digital meters and sensors, which provide (near) real-time data for accurate monitoring
- Supervisory control and data acquisition systems
- Automated distribution systems and precision algorithms
- Geographic information systems (GIS)
Smart water management typically aims to create solutions for water quality, water quantity, efficient irrigation, leaks, and water pressure and flow. It can also be deployed to increase the resilience of water systems in the face of extreme weather events, such as floods or drought. Smart water management also has the potential to adjust staffing requirements through increases in automation and different mixes of skills required to manage these systems, and can have a range of other intended and unintended impacts linked to control and the limiting of autonomy, privacy, economics and social well-being and relationships. This issue will explore a range of these topics, across Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, or other international examples as relevant to local contexts.
As the first special issue the Australasian Journal of Water Resources has run in this area, we are open to a range of survey, synthesis, original research and policy focussed articles. Topics could include:
- Novel smart water management configurations, systems, applications and case studies;
- The roles and perspectives of government and industry in developing and/or resisting different types of smart water management adoption, including economic (dis)incentives;
- Technological and algorithmic advances for intelligent water systems;
- Values and challenges of smart water management at different levels, from individuals and firms to neighbourhoods, cities, regions, cities and their governing bodies;
- Opportunities and challenges for smart water management in regions with fewer traditions of water monitoring and governance based on measurement;
- Cybernetic approaches to precision farming – how might smart water management fit into a technologically-advanced system of irrigated agriculture;
- Legislative and regulatory issues with smart water management;
- Community reception to smart water management, equitable and just access to smart systems, and opportunities for smarter community design and management;
- Long term trajectories of smart water management, including inter-generational shifts in technology use;
- Historical and comparative perspectives on ‘smart’ water management.
