The City of London Corporation has been acknowledged for its innovative IoT-focussed approach to climate disruption and disaster recovery. It has been announced as winner of the 2022 Itron Innovator Award for using technology to address pressing urban needs.
The City Corporation was recognized its use of an existing smart streetlight communications network along with IIoT sensors and smart applications to gather and analyze data to help determine the best way to manage and prepare for severe weather events before they become catastrophic. The project is being carried out as part of the City Corporation’s Climate Action Strategy.
The approach involved identifying new IoT applications and solutions that record temperature, humidity and soil moisture. Newly deployed sensors will monitor trends over the next 20 years to identify whether interventions, such as sustainable drainage systems and urban greening of ‘heat islands’, are helping to avoid disruptive temperatures and flooding of the City’s streets. Ongoing monitoring of street temperatures and soil moisture will help reduce the costs of maintenance and irrigation and provide real-time data to help the City Corporation evaluate which climate resilience interventions are the most effective in the face of severe weather patterns.
“The collaboration between Itron, Urban Control, the City Corporation and other community stakeholders is an excellent example of how diverse groups can come together to address the evolving needs and challenges of communities across the globe,” said Ben Huggins, senior vice president of Customer and Market Experience at Itron. “It is also a great example of the power of Itron’s extensive partner ecosystem.”
“This innovative sensor network will help the City of London avoid disruption from climate change-related weather events such as flooding, heatwaves and drought,” said Keith Bottomley, Chairman of the City of London Corporation’s Port Health & Environmental Services Committee. “This scheme forms part of the City Corporation’s ambitious Climate Action Strategy, which commits us to achieving net zero carbon emissions for our own operations by 2027 and supporting the achievement of net zero for the City as a whole by 2040.”
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