Intelligent smartphone-based portable network diagnostics for water security Case Study realtime pH mapping of tap water

TL;DR

This paper presents a smartphone-based portable water quality diagnostic tool using a fluorometer and custom app to map pH levels in real-time, demonstrating environmental forensics for water security.

Contribution

It introduces a novel smartphone-enabled portable water diagnostics system with real-time mapping and analysis capabilities for water security monitoring.

Findings

All sampled sites had pH within regulatory limits.

The system's measurements matched authority reports.

Real-time environmental forensics concept demonstrated.

Abstract

Using a field-portable, smartphone fluorometer to assess water quality based on the pH response of a designer probe, a map of pH of public tap water sites has been obtained. A custom designed Android application digitally processed and mapped the results utilizing the GPS service of the smartphone. The map generated indicates no disruption in pH for all sites measured. All the data are assessed to fall inside the upper limit of local government regulations and are consistent with authority reported measurements. The work demonstrates a new security concept: environmental forensics utilizing the advantage of real-time analysis for the detection of potential water quality disruption at any point in the city. The concept can be extended on national and global scales to a wide variety of analytes.