Smart Irrigation Management for Parks and Cool Towns (SIMPaCT) tackles three challenges facing Australian cities: urban heat; water scarcity; and providing the community with high quality urban green spaces.
Project summary
As the climate crisis deepens, and cities are densifying, these challenges are becoming more pronounced. SIMPaCT is a smart irrigation management solution that directly addresses these challenges.
Through a combination of smart low-cost sensing, real-time IoT data management and advanced analytics, SIMPaCT helps to maximise urban cooling, optimise water efficiency, and maintain thriving green infrastructure. The SIMPaCT pilot project at Sydney Olympic Park featured 260 smart IoT sensors that deliver live environmental data from the park, capturing a diversity of highly localised microclimates. Over 200 individual irrigation ‘stations’, distinct areas for targeted water delivery, could then be optimised based on this data.
The project was made possible with support from the NSW Government’s Smart Places Acceleration Fund. It was co-delivered by a coalition of partners that included UTS’s Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF), Western Sydney University, Sydney Olympic Park Authority, NSW Department of Planning and Environment, Sydney Water, and several industry stakeholders. ISF’s role was to oversee the capture and delivery of live data from the park, writing of the project Blueprint, and leading the development of a post-pilot ‘Roadmap for scalability’ See the SIMPaCT for more details.
SIMPaCT has won multiple high-profile awards, including: IoT Alliance ‘IoT for good’ award 2023; IoT Alliance ‘Research’ award 2023; InnovationAus ‘Govtech’ award 2023; InnovationAus ‘People’s Choice’ award 2023; and the NSW Banksia Award for ‘Climate Technology Impact’. SIMPaCT is a finalist in the national Banksia Awards and was a 2023 finalist in the prestigious World Smart City Awards.
Project timeframe
2022 – 2023
SDG targets addressed by this project
Sustainable cities and communities:
11.7 - By 2030, provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces, in particular for women and children, older persons and persons with disabilities.
Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure:
9.4 - By 2030, upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes, with all countries taking action in accordance with their respective capabilities
Responsible consumption and production:
12.2 – By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources
Climate action:
13.1 - Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries
13.3 - Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning
Partnerships for the goals:
17.7 – Promote the development, transfer, dissemination and diffusion of environmentally sound technologies to developing countries on favourable terms, including on concessional and preferential terms, as mutually agreed
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Senior Research Consultant
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Research Principal
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Associate Professor and Research Director