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TNWRRC Director Collaborates with Indian National Institute of Technology at Warangal

Research Collaboration with the Indian National Institute of Technology at Warangal Improving water resources monitoring and modeling

Drs. John Schwartz (University of Tennessee, Knoxville), Alfred Kalyanapu, and Tania Datta (Tennessee Tech) are collaborating on a research project with the Indian National Institute of Technology (NIT) at Warangal. At NIT-Warangal, the PI is Dr. Venkata Reddy Keesara. The project is funded by an Indian government initiative, the Scheme for Promotion of Academics and Research Collaboration (SPARC). The project, “Development of Low-cost Hardware Enabled Watershed Monitoring System for India,” involves working with available infrastructure to construct in-situ monitoring sensors for river flow and water quality. The sensors provide real-time data recording and processing, communication telemetry, and data management. This requires developing software in open source systems for receiving the sensor data and visualizing processed data in the web interface. 

Quantitative assessment of real-time hydrologic and water quality parameters is critical to understand the spatiotemporal variation of water resources over an area. Such flow assessments help in flood mapping forecasting hydrologic extremes, flood event reconstructions, and understanding water quality challenges within a watershed affected by multiple land uses. As with the eastern US, central India was greatly impacted by major flood damage to infrastructure. The water quality parameter of concern is suspended sediment transport measured by turbidity sensors. This in-stream sediment reflects soil erosion on the landscape so more measured data across a watershed can assist in identify areas that need improved erosion prevention practices. Overall, measured flow and turbidity data provides the critical information for decision-making processes that leads to sustainable water resources management. 

In India, hydrologic and water quality data are mostly collected by governmental agencies, and the number of monitoring locations as well as their distribution over an area very limited. The number of flow monitoring was not sufficient to calibrate hydrologic models. Local jurisdictions desire to collect these data for specific hydrologic and water quality studies, and develop early-warning systems for flooding for communities. The main issue is the high cost of available market instrumentation and their lack of communication capabilities. Open hardware is new paradigm in the electronic instrumentation and sensor systems that can address this challenge. Hardware components like sensing devices are available as per the user requirement and the proposed hydrologic measurement system can be built with the individual components. Open source software systems can be used to receive and disseminate data. 

Low-cost flow monitoring is the key objective to improve water resources management in India, although sediment water quality monitoring is also important. The development of the low-cost sensor for turbidity is not only a need in India but the US as well. Current commercial in-situ turbidity sensors are expensive and technologically have issues with biofouling and electronic drift. New ideas are in the works to create an innovative device that uses a special camera and machine learning technology.  

This project is a three-year grant from Indian’s SPARC program, with two field trips planned for the US teams to work at NIT-Warangal. The first trip was this year in July. Schwartz, Kalyanapu, and Datta worked with Dr. Reddy and three of his PhD students, Voguri Swathi, Hema Pavan, and Amgothu Venkatesh. Most of the research was on campus constructing the flow sensor, and discussing ideas for developing a new turbidity sensor. One day we traveled to a government flow monitoring station on the Godavari River near the village of Rampur Agrahar. The site was inspected for a potential location to install a low-cost water depth flow sensor. Water samples were taken that day to understand levels of background turbidity. 

In 2025, Dr. Reddy and two of his PhD students will come to Tennessee Tech and UTK to work on the project. And the US team will return to NIT Warangal next June to complete the project with a workshop seminar.