The Apennine mountains, which form the backbone of Italy, hold the water resources for the country’s central and southern regions. With the climate changing, the region is at a growing risk from drought and more intense weather. Intensive agricultural uses of the land, including growing olives and grapes, puts further pressure on water resources.

The Southern Apennine District River Basin Authority is charged with protecting the region’s water resources. To better monitor water quality and help ensure availability, the Authority wanted to build a network of sensors that could monitor the region’s springs and water basin and use that data to forecast the region’s water supply and work to mitigate the risks from natural disasters, pollution or spills. 

A Data-Driven Approach

The Authority worked with Hitachi Vantara to develop an innovative data-driven monitoring solution that takes input from cameras, thermal images, lidar and other sensors in the field. Data from those sensors is combined with GIS system data and weather forecasts and analyzed. 

Officials can inspect water resources in real time throughout the region. Data can be enriched and analyzed to generate insights that allow the Authority to better mitigate risks and protect the region’s springs and waterways. Better forecasting and modeling of natural events protects the region’s agricultural livelihood. And when emergencies or illegal activities occur, such as the dumping of industrial waste, the Authority can better coordinate with other agencies, including law enforcement. 

The solution leverages Hitachi Lumada Industrial Data Ops to capture the data on local water resources throughout the region. The data is blended with enterprise data, GIS and weather forecasts. Lumada Video Insights is used to collect, tag, visualize and analyze the video data, which is synced with the other field and enterprise data. Hitachi Content Platform Anywhere syncs the captured video to a central server, and Hitachi Content Intelligence enriches the video with metadata before storing it in a Hitachi Content Platform object storage system. 

Learn more about the solution.