An Investigation of the Feasibility of Using Low-Cost Appliance Turbidity Sensors for Water Quality Monitoring

Continuous and accurate monitoring of water quality is key to efficient and proactive water resource management. However, the cost and complexity of deploying such monitors limits their use. This research set out to determine if low-cost, off-the-shelf, appliance-grade turbidity sensors (~$3 in volume) have the needed precision and accuracy to be used in water quality monitoring applications. Several different models of appliance-grade turbidity sensors were considered. Tests were run to determine the variation between different units of the same model, the effect of temperature on the measurements, and the ultimately the granularity/precision of these turbidity sensors. The primary conclusion was that these low-cost turbidity sensors, even with device-specific calibration, do not have the precision required to provide useful data for typical water resource management applications. Future work focuses on improving the precision of low-cost turbidity sensors in water resource management applications by changing the geometry of the sensor and applying signal processing techniques