Experimental mobile environmental monitoring and real-time analysis as an initial application of EIoT in town villages in China

Abstract

Villages in China have been greatly impacted by the countrywide urbanisation process, and many of them have undergone transformation in landscape structure and rapid changes in environment. However, environmental monitoring in urbanising villages, or town villages, cannot be fully realised by the existing environmental monitoring infrastructure and resources. We intended to apply Environmental Internet of Things (EIoT) technology to fulfill this task, beginning with the development of a Mobile Meteorological Monitor (3M) consisting of an ultrasonic weather station, an industrial tablet PC, a foldable mountain bicycle and a series of accessories. The initial application of 3M in environmental monitoring for a town village indicates that the monitoring capability could be expanded to carry out the monitoring of other environmental variables, such as water quality, air pollution and noise pollution. By simultaneously employing multiple 3M units, it is possible to generate a spatiotemporal framework of monitoring data for landscape-level environmental analysis and modelling. Such an approach is economically affordable and scientifically reliable. The application of EIoT as it matures over time will revolutionise future environmental monitoring and governance.

Keywords:

• Environmental Internet of Things (EIoT)
• environmental monitoring
• mobile monitoring
• urbanizing village
• village sustainability

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX2-YW-453) and the National Science and Technology Support Program (2012BAC17B01).