Israel Post-Zionism: Focusing on the Big Picture
Much of America may be blessed with loads of fresh water, but in the heart of drought-stricken California wine country, in Sonoma County’s Valley of the Moon, more than half a million people cannot take for granted that they’ll receive a constant supply of water for home, industry and agriculture.
A new partnership between the county and IBM-Israel is “smartening up” the region’s water system with automatic leak detection and water-management systems to help California reach its goal of reducing water usage 20 percent by 2020. Running as a pilot program since October, after another six months the technology will proceed to the commercial stage so it can be used by counties across the United States.
Pnina Vortman heads the IBM Smarter Water Program based in Haifa at the IBM Research labs. Her team has developed new software tools to optimize valve pressure, using data from gauges and sensors throughout the system.
The commercial project will also help Sonoma County anticipate and circumvent crises like burst pipes.
“Smarter Planet [deals with] other topics like energy and traffic, and we do work in other areas as well, but we decided to put more efforts on water, because being in Israel, water technology is one of our strengths,” Vortman tells ISRAEL21c.