Monitoring Urban Groundwater in Barcelona

In May, iFLUX reached an important international milestone with the installation of its very first flux sensors in Spain. The project takes place in beautiful Barcelona and marks a major achievement for iFLUX: the company’s first operational sensing project on Spanish soil.

The deployment is part of the European research project URBAN M2O (Effective Monitoring and Modelling solutions for data-driven hOlistic management of URBAN water quality). This EU-funded initiative develops AI-enhanced monitoring tools and Digital Twins to better understand and manage urban water quality across European cities. The 4-year project is coordinated by the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and supports Europe’s Zero Pollution ambitions.

Three iFLUX horizontal flux sensors are being installed to monitor groundwater flow in real time. These sensors continuously measure the speed and direction of groundwater movement, helping the project team track how contamination may be drawn inland from the river due to the continuous pumping required to keep an underground parking facility dry.

Our sensors were carefully packaged and delivered on site in a sturdy transport crate, ready for installation. The fieldwork is supervised by iFLUX project managers Erik Bosmans, Arthur De Veirman and Timothy De Kleyn are on site to coordinate the installation activities.

The URBAN M2O project also investigates groundwater contamination through a combined sensor and cartridge monitoring approach. While the sensors provide live insight into groundwater flow dynamics, the iFLUX Samplers will add time-integrated information on contaminant mass flux: in other words, how much contamination is actually moving with the groundwater over a given period.

In a later phase, iFLUX Samplers will therefore be installed to complement the real-time sensor data and provide a deeper understanding of contaminant transport in the groundwater system.

With this innovative application, iFLUX contributes to smarter, data-driven urban water management and once again helps make the invisible dynamics of groundwater visible.