“It’s a vital cause to ensure that people drink healthy water.” In front of a wall painted with the above sentence at a small mountain village in Tanchang county, Gansu Province, a group of student volunteers from Tianjin University’s School of Environmental Science and Engineering posed for a photo. They were on a four-day summer program collecting data from 100 rural water supply facilities across Tanchang county.

“The data we collected will be used for the construction of a digital water management platform for water supply and drainage,”said Liu Kaili, the team leader of the Data collection Group.

Being a mountainous area, it’s very challenging for Tanchang County to execute safe drinking water projects. Currently, the county faces issues such as scattered water supply facilities over a vast mountain area, high dependence on personnel, and high labor costs.

To help the county tackle the problems and ensure rural drinking water safety, Tianjin University, as the rural revitalization partner of Tanchang, leveraged its online monitoring devices to establish a digital water management platform for water supply and drainage.

“By providing remote monitoring, online monitoring, real-time alerts, and intelligent supervision of rural water supply projects, the platform will help improve water supply projects’ management efficiency, cutting down their costs, and ensuring water safety. It is also favorable to water environment protection and water pollution reduction. Moreover, it is supposed to enhance the county’s digital governance level,” Zhu Jiyue, a TJU staff supervisor of the student group noted.

Data collection is the first and most critical step in building the digital water management platform. Most of the water supply facilities are located on top of rugged mountains. That posed great challenges to the data collection group. “To cover 100 data sites within four days, plus the demanding routes, we have been through a lot.” said Liu, “But thinking our hard work may help many people in this rural area have access to safer and cleaner drinking water, and improve the water management of the community, every effort is worthwhile.”

It’s learned that the data collection work conducted by TJU team is an important part of the summer practice activities organized by the Jing-Jin-Ji Ecological Civilization Education Practice and Innovation Alliance. This alliance, initiated by nine institutions including China Environmental News, Tianjin University, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Hebei University of Technology, and Hebei Finance University, aims to promote China’s ecological civilization ideology through diverse practical activities.

By Eva Yin