Dive Brief:

• Singapore's water agency recently announced plans to install 10,000 "smart showers" in homes across the city-state, as reported by Channel News Asia.
• The water agency, Public Utilities Board (PUB), envisions an IoT device that will alert users in real-time to the amount of water being used to raise awareness of consumption. 
• Residents' water usage will later be on display when Singapore launches Virtual Singapore, a SimCity-like platform that will let city planners look at detailed information of buildings and areas. Data points like traffic, number of residents, amount of parking spaces, building material and more will also be available.

Dive Insight:

Singapore became a leader of smart city adoption in 2014 when Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced an initial roll out of 1,000 sensors for the launch of his Smart Nation program. Therefore it’s not surprising that the city-state is working on reducing water use with technology. Singapore has a history of importing its water from Malaysia, its northern neighbor, a situation the two countries have argued about despite a treaty and a tenuous position when Malaysia is having water scarcity issues of its own.

According to a study by the PUB and National University of Singapore (NUS), households given real-time information about their water usage saved 5 liters of water per person per day. About 29% of a Singaporean’s monthly water use comes from showers, according to PUB director of water supply Michael Toh. While the pilot project likely will not launch until 2018, U.S. cities can keep an eye on Singapore's progress and evaluate ways to integrate this system into homes domestically. 

In the meantime, companies like Hydrao First have developed connected shower heads to monitor water consumption via a mobile app. By encouraging homeowners to personally invest in smart home appliances like these, city officials can guide residents to save both money and resources.