How Can Mega-Cities Manage Water Systems?

Geospatial Intelligence Lights Up Shenzhen's Smart Water Governance

Shenzhen—a modern metropolis of over 10 million people—is a “thirsty” city. Its per-capita water resources are below the global water-scarcity threshold, while frequent typhoons and heavy rains bring flooding risks, and the city’s water environment has limited capacity.

Faced with the challenges of “too much flood, too little water per capita, and polluted water,” traditional issues such as data silos, high leakage rates, and aging drainage infrastructure make water governance increasingly complex.

To align with national smart-water policies and accelerate Shenzhen’s digital water transformation, the Shenzhen Smart Water Integrated Command and Support Center, together with SuperMap and other partners, jointly developed the Shenzhen Smart Water Phase I Project (hereinafter “the Project”).

By deeply integrating geospatial intelligence and digital twin technologies, the Project builds a modern governance system that is “perceivable, predictable, dispatchable, and simulatable.”

It provides precise and efficient decision support for water security, environmental protection, and sustainable urban development. The Project received the 2025 Geographic Information Industry Excellent Engineering Gold Award in China.

The “1 + 3 + N” Architecture: A Full-Scale Smart Water System

• 1 Command & Decision Center: A citywide smart water “brain” enabling unified monitoring, coordinated dispatching, and intelligent decision-making.

• 3 Major Business Sectors: Supporting “Six Water Governance,” engineering management, and government operations, ensuring end-to-end water-management workflows.

• N Digital Scenarios: Based on a digital-twin spatial foundation, offering applications such as flood-risk early warning, smart reservoir scheduling, pollution source tracing, and more.

1. Digital Twins for Full-Factor, Transparent Water Management

The Project breaks the long-standing separation between “aboveground vs. underground” and “static vs. dynamic” data by integrating 2D/3D GIS, BIM, and IoT data. A full life-cycle digital twin of the water system enables comprehensive, transparent monitoring and makes the operational status of the city’s water system fully visible.

Key results include:

• Digitized water assets:

A unified coding system covers 6 major categories and 30 subcategories—over 5,300 key assets across rivers, reservoirs, plants, pipelines, stations, and more—forming a standardized “one object, one code” and “one dataset, one source” water-data governance model.

• Digitized business scenarios:

Digital-twin applications were built for flood and drought management, water-balance analysis, water-quality compliance, work-order management, soil & water conservation, and other key workflows.

2. Intelligent Warning & Dispatch: A Dual Defense for Water Security

Based on reservoir terrain, capacity, and supply coverage, the Project establishes a three-level dispatching system for strategic storage, cross-district regulation, and stormwater utilization. Integrating 3D reality maps with BIM data enables real-time visualization of water levels, water quality, and equipment status, ensuring dynamic risk alerts and informed decision-making.

Notable improvements:

• Dry-season water-supply reliability increased to 98%.

• Reservoir dispatch response time shortened from 2 hours to 30 minutes.

• Urban flood forecasting strengthened: A big-data model for waterlogging prediction provides 72-hour forecasts for 26 flooding hotspots with second-level response and over 90% accuracy.

3. AI-Driven Pollution Tracing: A New Paradigm for Precision Control

With GIS spatial topology combined with AI tracing algorithms, the Project builds a full-chain pollution-control system covering source, pathway, and endpoint. It can identify pollution sources within 10 minutes, supporting targeted remediation and refined environmental management.

The system visualizes:

• Water flow, concentration, and collection rates at wastewater treatment plants, and their correlation with rainfall and water supply

• Real-time water quality at river monitoring sections and its relationship with precipitation

• A complete monitoring chain for “rainfall → water supply → drainage network → outfalls → treatment facilities → rivers,” forming a full closed loop for assessment and corrective actions

This enables full-process monitoring and analysis of the entire wastewater collection and treatment cycle.

Impact: Stronger Water Safety, Higher Efficiency

Since commissioning, the Project has become the core platform for Shenzhen’s water management.

• During the July 26, 2024 heavy rainfall, it accurately predicted overflow risks at the Shangfen River, enabling timely emergency actions and minimizing losses.

• Throughout the 2023–2024 flood season, it helped avoid severe waterlogging in 15 critical areas—including Futian CBD and Nanshan Science Park—boosting emergency response efficiency by 60% and achieving zero casualties.

The Project’s standardized “geospatial-intelligence-driven water governance” framework has now been adopted in multiple cities. The public service platform “Shenzhen Water Services” has served over 5 million users, increasing public environmental engagement by 45%, and setting a national benchmark for smart water governance and community-wide participation.