ASMITAS -a novel application for digitalizing the SASMIT Sediment Color Tool to identify arsenic safe aquifers

Arsenic (As) contamination in groundwater is an environmental health hazard in several part of the world and a large number of population has affected due to its toxic nature. In Bangladesh, a comprehensive research was accomplished which established a very strong correlation between the aquifer sediments and As concentration in the groundwater. The local drillers practice this knowledge over a time. Based on an action research conducted by the SASMIT project team from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden in collaboration with the local drillers in Bangladesh and a novel handheld sediment color tool was produced to facilitate the local drillers to target safe aquifers for safe tube-well installation. This study was made to advance this tool to be developed as a fully artificial intelligence (AI) based digital ASMITAS (Arsenic Mitigation at Source) tool based on spectral scanning of the sediment color. An HSI camera enables us to capture continuous spectral channels from a given object ranging from IR bands, through VR to UV ranges and hence scores comprehensive imaging output over traditional RGB data based color cameras, thus increase the perception of the color with more accuracy and precision. This new tool can be scalable to cover large geographical area and hence can be very useful tool for local drillers and other stakeholders for smart decision making for installation of safe tube-wells for mitigating As at source level.