As populations grow, industrial development increases and agricultural requirements skyrocket.
But unsustainable practices across industries have resulted in rapid degradation of air, soil and water quality levels worldwide, which has in turn led to a rise in demand for devices that can help detect changes in the environment.
This is where environmental sensing and monitoring systems come in. These systems consist of satellites, portable ground and remote sensors, and measurement and model data.
The global environmental sensing and monitoring market is expected to reach an overall value of $19.56 billion by 2019, growing at a CAGR of 6.7%.
The market is divided into four main application segments: Air, water, soil and noise.
Environmental monitoring by application
Air
The air monitoring equipment segment is expected to be worth $7.69 billion by 2019. This segment includes applications in the areas of air monitoring, gas levels, pollution, and ozone depletion, making it the largest segment by far.
Many local governments are introducing initiatives to maintain better air quality through support programs. In the US, for instance, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s efforts for next-generation air monitoring (NGAM) has the following applications:
- Personal and community based monitoring
- Emission source measurements for industry and enforcement officials
- Classroom monitoring
- Accurate measurement of ambient air exposures for regulatory purposes
- Air pollution research and screening to determine if more extensive monitoring is required
Water
The global market for water quality sensing and monitoring equipment is expected to reach $6.49 billion by 2019, growing at a CAGR of 7.2% thanks to advancements in aquatic sensors such as salinity, turbidity, and flow sensors.
Some of the most significant recent advances in sensing technologies are:
Acoustic sensors
- These are generally used for scientific explorations, commercial exploitations, ocean topography, sub-bottom geological topography, defense surveillances, and environmental protection
Non-acoustic sensors
- Optical sensors: Detect autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs)
- Electrochemical: Widely used in marine environmental monitoring; is capable of potentiometry (measurement of chemical component up to sub-nanomolar levels) and voltammetry (to detect presence of underwater explosives)
Bio-inspired sensors
- Inspired from mimicking natural biological processes, this new breed of sensor is pushing current IT technology to a new standard
As a result of these advances, the ability to describe dynamic aquatic properties at temporal and spatial platforms has improved. They have led to advanced statistical and automatous monitoring of water quality trends at local and regional scales for freshwater and marine ecosystems.
Additionally, they have greatly enhanced the detection of hydrologic variability, which has become a critical tool for early warning systems and rapid response to potential aquatic environmental threats such as algal bloom.
Soil
The soil segment of the overall market includes applications like monitoring ecosystem and bio-complexity, mapping forest landscapes, detecting land use, landslide, and agricultural patterns, seismic sensing and situational awareness.
Noise
While the noise segment is the smallest, it’s also expected to post significant growth through the forecast period, with a CAGR of 7% from 2014-2019.
Because of the serious side effects of high noise levels, noise pollution is monitored closely and controlled by high standards and government legislation.
Noise monitoring consists of real-time data transmission and dynamic noise maps, which store and transmit the noise levels of each location under observation to a central location.
As cities grow and populations increase, many governments are turning their sites to controlling noise pollution, which will drive growth in this segment thr
