Smart Water Management for a Sustainable Tomorrow: A Digital Twin Approach for Rural India

Rural areas in India, such as Randullabad village in Satara, are facing significant water challenges related to UN SDG6. It includes inadequate water supply, inefficient distribution, and poor water quality. Current methods of water governance rely on manual data collection and limited use of sensors. This leads to lack of modelling, inaccurate estimation, delayed response times, and inefficient decision-making. These limitations results in water-related conflicts, water-wastage, and economic losses. To address these issues, a digital twin approach is proposed for sustainable water management. This approach integrates existing and historical data with new data from advanced sensors, using machine learning algorithms to create a virtual replica of the village's water supply network. The proposed methodology and high-level implementation architecture of Digital Twin of Randullabad Watershed and Groundwater (DToGW) could set new water-governance standards at the village level and potentially transform water management in rural communities.