new delhi a boat ride down the yamuna in the capital provides visual proof of how polluted the river is but a new technology quantifies this presence of pollutants the watertocloud tech uses sensors attached to the boat when the system traverses the riverine course the sensors send realtime readings to a handheld device that allows researchers to analyse the spots along the river where the pollution is highestfor over two decades now the concentration of pollutants in the yamuna has been steadily rising with no decrease in the industrial and sewage discharge into the river despite preventive measures taken various agencies the new technology developed by the university of chicagos tata centre for development can pinpoint where the pollutants are entering the riveras toi found out when it took a ride with the research team recently the sensors are cyberphysical meaning they are mechanical but monitored on computers and integrated with the internet they test the water quality on parameters like dissolved oxygen do nitrates ammonia and turbidity among others priyank hirani team head of the watertocloud project explained that the data collected are translated into geospatial maps and heat maps that visually represent the parameters and facilitate a better understanding of the rivers characterwe have been gathering data since 2017 every time we take a ride we try to take a different route down the river said hirani the idea is to cover the entire river so that we can generate an accurate heat map the more the data generated the easier it is to learn which portions of the yamuna need attention we also identify areas where the pollutants are entering the waterthe team generally opts for two routes one from wazirabad barrage to ito and the other between ito and okhla barrage while the biological oxygen demand bod cannot be measured in realtime pseudo indicators like tryptophan an amino acid found in proteins are used to understand the realtime surrogate value of bodthe sensors collect data every 10 seconds on the ride which is usually of three hours duration over 1000 data points are captured during a typical ride since 2017 we have generated data for different seasons and different times of the day for parameters that cannot be measured in real time we collect water samples for analysis in the laboratory said hirani the team found that there is only a plusminus 10 difference between realtime readings and readings determined in the labthe tata centre for development at university of chicago is being jointly assisted by the international innovation corps on this river exercise himank sharma who is jointly heading the project said that the plan is to collect more data before consolidating everything into a report which will be submitted to agencies like delhi jal board and central pollution control boardsince the middle of 2017 we have gathered 59568 data points for the yamuna said sharma this data is currently accessible on our website and we encourage other agencies and organisations to