Fountains are valuable landscape elements in the city and offer refreshment to citizens. However, the 47 fountains managed by the City of Antwerp are not maintenance-friendly and insufficiently sustainable, resulting in high operating costs. The stoppage of a fountain also leads to public dissatisfaction.

By incorporating sensors and intelligent controls in each fountain, it is possible to reduce water consumption, standardise maintenance and limit manual interventions by proactively detecting defects. The new online IoT platform provides for monitoring the fountains and automatically adjusting their operational status, water quality (including sustainable water management) and energy consumption. The control of the fountains also responds to weather conditions, technical failures and visitor attendance.

The intended innovation lies mainly in the configuration and interconnection of the various installations. By installing the sensors, online platform and associated notification tool, a large set of data is collected on the fountains. The various parameters can be better matched, leading to more efficient operation.

This data will be useful for developing sustainable fountains. It also gives new insights towards future maintenance with an ecological approach and with care for heritage and towards increased interaction with citizens as a function of greater comfort.