This article was written as part of The Michigan Daily’s investigation to better understand the risks, advancements and future of water in Michigan and beyond. Read other stories from the project here.
As climate change intensifies and infrastructure ages, managing water resources has become more complex and urgent than ever. At the University of Michigan’s Digital Water Lab, researchers and students are exploring new opportunities with technology to address these challenges. The lab investigates how modern technology can revolutionize the way we handle flooding from stormwater and other water systems by integrating sensing and artificial intelligence into water management.
In an email to The Michigan Daily, postdoctoral researcher Travis Dantzer, who is part of the lab, said the Digital Water Lab’s work is guided by two main goals.
“I’d say our main goals are (1) identifying and adapting existing technologies to solve water problems and (2) developing new methods and theories for how smart cities will handle water and aquatic ecosystems,” Dantzer wrote. “Some examples of (1) would be using reinforcement learning agents to control water systems while (2) might be the models we created for the department of transportation to monitor and predict river levels underneath bridges.”
One impactful aspect of the lab is its sensor network. The system of sensors collects data like water depth, flow and quality, which supports conservation agencies, the Department of Transportation and water utilities. A top priority of the lab has been to make these sensors more economically viable and scalable to increase their accessibility.
In an interview with The Daily, Rackham student Meagan Tobias said the lab’s sensor network is cost-efficient compared to other sensors currently in use, citing the cost of installing a sensor node.
“Current sensors for data flow, such as (for the United States Geological Survey), I believe it costs $40,000 to install the sensor node, and then $20,000 a year for upkeep,” Tobias said. “But our sensors, including the installation, are maybe over $1,000. So we’re able to build monitors and sense a much broader area.”
Engineering freshman Chrissi Zachariades told The Daily the project has faced some challenges in maintaining reliable sensor data.
“There’s a lot of sensors in the Huron River measuring water depth, but a problem with these sensors is where in the environment an obstruction could happen. Like a tree in the way if there’s a storm or something, or all the batteries for the sensors are solar powered, so it’s common for the battery to die randomly, ” Zachariades said.
Dantzer said in addition to practical, service-oriented applications, there is also a more theoretical component to their work.
“There’s also a lot of work that’s more in the fundamentals of machine learning, control theory and model discovery,” Dantzer said. “Developing new tools that are better suited to problems we face in water than existing (technology). For example, the way that rainfall causes river levels to rise is kind of delayed and spread out throughout time. Existing methods to learn differential equations to describe that don’t handle that kind of delayed causation all that gracefully.”
One of the current projects Digital Water Lab is working on focuses on developing smart river basins by improving how dams and reservoirs are managed using sensor data. The goal is to help various rural and urban communities within the 900 square mile Huron River Watershed make more informed decisions about water flow.
Currently, dam and reservoir operators adjust gates based on their local needs, which can unintentionally affect downstream water levels and create ecological issues, such as disrupting fish habitats during spring. By deploying sensors and collecting real-time data, the team aims to create tools that allow communities to coordinate water management more effectively. While dams are often seen as environmental risks, this project explores how they can become valuable resources when managed strategically across an entire watershed.
Anderson said the lab partners with the community through its work with the Huron River Watershed Council.
“One of our current projects is partnering with the Huron River Watershed Council,” Anderson said. “They’re a really great group of people who work on maintaining and returning the Huron River Watershed and the river itself back to a natural river, maintaining its ecosystems and different natural processes that should be happening. We’re collaborating with them on the side of user interfacing for controlling flows in that area.”
In an interview with The Daily, Rackham student Kayla Anderson highlighted the lab’s strong connection with the community and its collaborative approach to research.
“We have many community partners with this lab, more than any other lab that I looked at in any other school,” Anderson said. “That was probably the reason why I chose this lab specifically, because our advisor spends a lot of time going through and meeting up with the community partners and making sure that we have those partnerships going forward to make sure our work is actually implemented in the real world.”
Daily News Staff Reporter Isabella Yatooma can be reached at Yatoomai@umich.edu.
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