AquaMAP at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras provided technical assistance to the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) for strengthening its Online Continuous Effluent/Emission Monitoring System (OCEMS), which enables continuous monitoring of effluent and emission quality from major industries. The project focused on improving the reliability, authenticity, and transparency of OCEMS data used for regulatory compliance and environmental surveillance.

The work addressed three key areas: development of an onsite auditing protocol for OCEMS analyzers, development of a secure IoT-based data acquisition system, and formulation of methodologies for interpretation and validation of OCEMS data. Field assessments were undertaken at selected industries to examine monitoring equipment, measurement principles, calibration practices, data acquisition and transmission systems, and the relationship between OCEMS measurements and industrial process parameters.

Based on these assessments, a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) was developed for systematic auditing and inspection of OCEMS analyzers for both water and air monitoring. An IoT-based data logger was also developed to facilitate secure and tamper-resistant acquisition and transmission of real-time monitoring data, incorporating mechanisms for data integrity, authentication, encryption, and traceability.