New smartphone apps target solving consistent water issues, which include poor sanitation, drought, and leaks among others.
Billions of people are apparently affected by water issues, regardless of the element’s value or condition. Governments around the world make it possible to allot hefty budget in order to develop new infrastructure and reconstruct pipelines for waters. Nonetheless, water problems are still present and are consistent.
At present, smarter solutions are aimed through the utilization of continuously innovating mobile phone advancements for development of smartphone apps.
An estimated one out of four people in India has access to drinking people. With its population of 1.2 billion people, 940 million are subscribers of mobile phone carriers. Until today, there are residents that endure long lines just to gain access the public water pumps in the country. Every day, people queue for a number of hours due to the area’s discredited water sources like faucets and pipes.
NextDrop acted as a solution for the water problem in India, whose development was spearheaded by Anu Sridharan of Bangalore. The messaging service will provide people updates on postponement and unanticipated changes in water service. NextDrop is also responsible for appraising faulty pipe reports from residents to water utilities. Recently, the app is made available to as much as 75,000 mobile users in India.
Similar type of app has been opened up by IBM, which is named Creek Watch. The mobile app is responsible for giving citizens information on their town watercourses’ height and flow rate. The real-time reports are not just for the residents alone, but also for water utility firms that need information on their water service improvement and pollution tracking. The app is now available in more than 25 countries and was first introduced in San Jose, California.
Yearly reports indicated that 760,000 children under the age of five die out of diarrhea. The main factor responsible for the matter is food or water infectivity, which makes the dilemma the second conducing fatality cause for the youth.
As a response to the matter, mWater app made it possible to have a system feeding people with data about safe water sources. It engages citizens to test the quality of water and track presence of E coli and coliform bacteria. On October 2013, USAID’s venture capital firm vested $100,000 for the app in order to tell users regarding near safe water drinking reservoirs through automated SMS.
Dropcountr app, which is presented by chief executive Robb Barnitt, is meant to help California state citizens to manage their water usage limit and get information about pipeline leaks. The app is specifically designed to aid people in saving money in water consumption.
Another water problem is flood harm in the globe. FloodAlerts in UK has been the answer to deliver residents real-time reports about flood risks. The Guardian’s Innovation Nation awardee in 2012 was structured by Shoothill in Shrewsbury. Partnered with the app is PlantTracker app, which urges people to send images of non-native plant species in rivers of UK. If the mentioned problem can be controlled, risks of flooding will also be inhibited.
