Internet of Things Should Play a Role in Environmental Monitoring

The rapid development of the Internet of Things has become a bright spot in the market. According to market research firm Gartner, the number of IoT devices will surge to 26 billion U.S. dollars by 2020, and the Internet of Things will increase the global economy by 1.9 trillion U.S. dollars. As one of the important fields of application of the Internet of Things, environmental monitoring industry should excavate its intrinsic value under its bright appearance.

Environmental issues are prominent, change drives rapid development

According to the Asian Development Bank's 2012 report, of the top 500 cities in China, less than 1% of the city’s air quality has reached the standards promulgated by the World Health Organization. Among them, seven Chinese cities rank among the ten most polluted cities in the world. According to the 2013 China Geographic Survey report, 90% of Chinese cities’ surface waters are polluted, and two-thirds of them are serious pollution. The depletion of resources and deterioration of the ecological environment have become the biggest bottleneck, which has seriously hindered the country’s economic and social development. "Most environmental indicators in the 11th Five-Year Plan, including nitrogen and sulfur dioxide emissions, and water pollution have not been successfully completed. Environmental conditions have triggered a series of public health problems such as respiratory diseases, cancer, stunting, etc. Has caused great harm to economic development.

Faced with severe environmental pressure, after years of exploration and practice, China’s environmental protection is shifting from “end-to-end governance” to “total-capacity control” and has changed from “localized local pollution source management” to “environmental quality overall improvement”. Pollution control and monitoring will be the first step. As the top industry in the environmental protection industry chain, it will continue to maintain rapid development. First, air quality monitoring will cover a wider area. Pollution source monitoring will be developed for coal-fired boilers and ultra-low emission monitoring. VOC monitoring has been included in the “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan”; second, “Water Ten” will promote the subdivision of water quality monitoring. Thirdly, under the background of the country's efforts to promote third-party operation and maintenance services, environmental monitoring equipment manufacturers are transitioning from pure equipment providers to environmental monitoring systems and operation and maintenance; Fourth, the realization of “wisdom and environmental protection” through the Internet of Things technology. We will promote the development of environmental protection industry informatization and ensure timely and efficient real-time monitoring and law enforcement.

Internet of Things Technology Accelerates Industry Chain Integration

For the whole environmental monitoring system, it mainly consists of environmental monitoring instruments, data transmission networks, system platforms, and analysis and application. The downstream market is mainly concentrated in two areas of environmental quality monitoring and pollution source monitoring. From the perspective of industry distribution, the first is the government. One of the environmental monitoring stations is paper, petrochemical, electric power, steel and other key polluting companies.

The environmental authorities at all levels hope to realize the “wisdom and environmental protection” construction through the Internet of Things technology, promote the development of information technology in the environmental protection industry, and ensure timely and efficient real-time monitoring and law enforcement and pollution control. The monitoring instrument will be connected to the system platform through the transmission network. The platform can usually achieve the following functions: 1. Combine WebGIS, support terminal access of smart phones, tablet computers, etc. 2. The system can achieve specific data acquisition and management requirements; 3. Realize comprehensive alarm management. In response to these needs, traditional environmental monitoring companies have begun to integrate the industrial chain and have expanded the system platform and other products involving informatization in the previous pure monitoring equipment product line.

Companies in the environmental monitoring industry can be roughly divided into three categories: one is listed companies with an annual operating income of over 400 million yuan, representing companies such as Xuedilong and Xianhe Environmental Protection, and the second is medium-sized with an annual operating income of over 20 million. Large-scale companies, on behalf of companies have created a tower in Shanghai, Sichuan Hope, etc.; three categories are companies with annual operating income of 20 million or less. For a class of enterprises, from the analysis of the 2014 annual report, some companies strengthen their own system platform building capabilities by participating in software companies; for the second type of enterprises, the system platform capabilities are mainly achieved through the formation of teams, joint software companies, and platform outsourcing. .

To observe in real time, it is necessary to give early warning

Through the complete system of equipment + network + platform, the Internet of Things technology provides powerful guarantees for real-time monitoring of the environment and timely and efficient enforcement of pollution control. If you only want to get a more prepared and more connected network through the Internet of Things, then this is a waste of resources for this technology. At the same time, environmental monitoring not only requires clairvoyant observations, but also requires expert consultants who need to be dealt with afterwards. The latter is not a simple application of the Internet of Things, but a deep exploration of the big data and data models built upon it. On the one hand, through a unified data platform or cross-system data integration to ensure that the data is standardized and effective; on the other hand, according to different applications, establish a corresponding analysis model, through the simulation, to develop solutions and early warning programs.

For the above description, there is a more classic case: a monitoring point in a certain place in China often appears excessive PM2.5 alarm, the competent department can not understand the solution, seeking to solve the environmental monitoring service provider, the company found through data collection and analysis The monitoring point is located near a traffic light. When there is a certain amount of congestion, a large amount of exhaust emissions from the vehicle cause PM2.5 to exceed the standard. At the same time, the company further analyzed that the main cause of excessive congestion was the red light time at the place which lasted 90 seconds. Through cross-analysis with traffic data, it is recommended that the red light time be adjusted to 60 seconds to solve the problem of excessive PM2.5.

Most emerging technologies will experience a period of bubble period and controversy after their birth. In the face of such a process, two extremes should be avoided. One extreme is conservative, and stubborn criticism criticizes them for nothing; the other extreme is cloud-clouding. Wrap around and blow away the toast. The former is usually a conservative person in the industrial field, and the latter is often Mr. Dong Guo from the venture capital circle.