A service for global water level and river flow data based on pervasive sensor networks

洪水和干旱是全世界最具破坏性和破坏性的自然灾害之一。制定适应和缓解战略，如洪水预报系统，有赖于对水位和河流流量的准确观测。然而，世界上的河流监测仍然非常薄弱，现有的监测网络在空间和时间上往往非常稀疏。这是水资源管理和降低风险的一个主要瓶颈。我们开发了一个智能传感器网络，它结合了新颖、低成本的传感器技术和计算机算法来管理网络。有了这个网络，我们可以以一种比现有方法更具成本效益、更强大、更灵活、更环保的方式来监测和得出各种河流流量参数。我们已在世界各地应用我们的技术，并应用于广泛的应用，包括索马里的地下水井监测、秘鲁的水安全评估绿色基础设施以及尼泊尔的基于社区的洪水预警。这些应用程序使我们能够测试和改进该技术在现实世界条件下的性能和健壮性，并将该技术暴露给潜在的最终用户。这引起了广泛的兴趣，包括购买传感器和相关技术的各种具体请求。基于这一经验，我们看到了通过建立针对应用程序定制的水位和河流流量数据和分析的创新全球服务，将我们的技术商业化的机会。在申请创新后续奖之前，我们打算实施一系列活动，以正式确定我们的最终用户参与度，并分析潜在市场。这将使我们能够了解最终用户的需求，并确定适合该服务的业务模式。通过帝国理工学院MBA Connect项目，我们与帝国理工学院的学生亨利·斯佩斯曼展开了合作。在进入帝国理工学院攻读MBA之前，亨利曾在欧洲和美国的几家科技初创公司任职。因此，他在市场分析和商业模式开发方面拥有广泛的专业知识，这与Buytaert博士团队的技术和科学专业知识具有很强的互补性。我们打算利用探路者资金与Henry签约，以制定最终用户参与的战略，为我们提供在商业模式发展中所需的投入。通过我们之前的互动和经验，我们确定了一组潜在的客户(更多细节见“受益者”一节)。然而，他们的需求是多样化的，并提出了不同的潜在商业模式，从销售传感器到提供与安装、操作和数据分析相关的一系列服务。因此，我们的目标是与潜在客户进行访谈，以了解他们运营的商业环境，例如当前的需求、最困难的运营领域、已经实施了多少监测，以及分配给水文数据生成的总预算的比例。这些信息将使我们能够确定一个或多个合适的商业模式，作为制定商业计划的第一步。在最终用户互动和商业模式发展的同时，我们还旨在探索知识产权背景，实施风险分析，并确定相关的竞争对手。

Floods and droughts are among the most damaging and disruptive natural hazards worldwide. The development of adaptation and mitigation strategies such as flood forecasting systems relies on accurate observations of water level and river flow. However, the world's rivers are still very poorly monitored and existing monitoring networks are often very sparse in space and time. This is a major bottleneck for water resources management and risk reduction.We have developed a "smart" sensor network that consists of a combination of novel, low-cost sensor technologies and computer algorithms to manage the network. With this network we can monitor and derive various river flow parameters in a way that is far more cost-effective, robust, flexible, and environmentally friendly than existing methods.We have applied our technologies around the world and in a wide variety of applications, including groundwater well monitoring in Somalia, evaluating green infrastructure for water security in Peru, and supporting community-based flood early warning in Nepal. These applications have allowed us to test and refine the performance and robustness of the technology in real-world conditions, and has also exposed the technology to potential end-users. This has generated a broad interest, including various specific requests to purchase the sensors and related technologies.Based on this experience, we see an opportunity to commercialize our technology by building an innovative global service for application-tailored water level and river flow data and analytics. Before applying for an Innovation Follow-On award, we intend to implement a set of activities to formalize our end-user engagement and analyse the potential market. This will allow us to understand end-user needs, and to identify an appropriate business model for the service. Through the Imperial College MBA Connect programme, we have teamed up with the Imperial Business School student Henry Spethmann. Before embarking on MBA studies at Imperial College, Henry has been involved in several technology start-ups in Europe and the United States. As a result, he has extensive expertise on market analysis and business model development, which is highly complementary to the technological and scientific expertise of Dr Buytaert's group.We intend to use the Pathfinder funding to contract Henry to develop a strategy for end-user engagement that will provide us with the necessary input in the development of the business model. Through our previous interactions and experience, we identified a set of potential clients (see section on "Beneficiaries" for more details). However, their requirements are diverse and suggest different potential business models, ranging from selling sensors to providing a set of services related to installation, operation, and data analysis. Therefore, we aim to conduct interviews with potential customers to understand the business context in which they operate, e.g. current needs, most difficult areas of operation, how much monitoring is already in place, and proportion of total budget allocated for hydrological data generation. This information will allow us to identify one or more suitable business models, as a first step towards the development of a business plan.In conjunction to the end-user interaction and business model development, we also aim to explore the intellectual property context, implement a risk analysis, and identify relevant competitors.