Smart City Resource Monitoring: A Unified Approach to Water and Energy Management

Efficient and intelligent management of essential resources such as water and electricity has become a critical necessity in the development of modern smart cities. Traditional monitoring approaches mainly on manual meter readings, periodic inspections, and delayed billing processes, which often result in inaccurate measurements, inefficient consumption tracking, and a lack of timely insights for both consumers and utility providers. These limitations contribute to excessive resource wastage, undetected leakages, increased operational costs, and reduced sustainability. To tackle these pressing challenges, this paper introduces the design and implementation of an Internet of Things (IoT)-based Smart City Resource Monitoring System capable of providing continuous, real-time tracking of water flow and electrical energy usage. The proposed system integrates multiple sensing technologies, including water flow sensors and electrical voltage and current sensors, with an ESP32 micro controller serving as the core processing unit. Data present in the sensors is transmitted to cloud storage, where it is securely logged, analyzed, and visualized through an interactive dashboard. This dashboard enables users and administrators to monitor live consumption data, identify abnormal usage patterns, receive automated alerts, and generate accurate billing based on predefined tariff structures. By offering a unified and automated platform for monitoring critical utilities, the system enhances transparency, supports predictive maintenance, and empowers users to make more informed decisions about their resource usage. This IoT-based solution thus contributes significantly to sustainable urban development.