High-Frequency IoT-Based Comparative Physicochemical Assessment of Treated Municipal Water and Decentralized Groundwater in Bragança, NE Portugal
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Drinking water quality is essential for public health and requires monitoring approaches able to capture both regulatory compliance and short-term variability. This study presents a high-frequency IoT-based comparative physicochemical assessment of two drinking-water sources in Bragança, NE Portugal: treated municipal water derived from surface water and groundwater abstracted from a decentralized supply system. A low-cost IoT monitoring system was used to measure pH, electrical conductivity, temperature, oxidation-reduction potential, and total dissolved solids. Monitoring campaigns were conducted between January and March 2026 at two treated-water points within the public supply system and three groundwater points, complemented by municipal records from 2023 to 2025. The treated municipal supply showed a more stable physicochemical profile and lower variability, whereas groundwater was associated with higher mineralization and stronger temporal fluctuations. Significant differences were found for electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids, oxidation-reduction potential, temperature, and pH. High-frequency monitoring enabled the identification of dynamic patterns and transient fluctuations that would be difficult to detect through discrete sampling alone.