BDS Empowers Smart Water Conservancy Construction: Current Status, Challenges, and Future Opportunities

Abstract. The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) is a critical spatial-temporal infrastructure in China, and since its inception, it has been widely applied across various socio-economic sectors. Smart Water Conservancy is the most prominent indicator of high-quality development in the water conservancy sector during the new phase, and one of its six key implementation paths. The BeiDou system provides robust technical support for Smart Water Conservancy, offering essential spatial-temporal benchmarks, high-precision positioning, and communication services for the construction of digital twin water conservancy. This paper first introduces the development process of the BeiDou system, reviewing its technological advancements from regional navigation to global coverage. Then, from the functional perspective of the BeiDou system, it analyzes its current applications in typical scenarios such as water conservancy project deformation monitoring, water conservancy inspection, and water monitoring data transmission. The paper also discusses the application of BeiDou remote sensing technology in water level monitoring, soil moisture inversion, and atmospheric water vapor inversion. Additionally, this paper explores the challenges the BeiDou system faces in enabling Smart Water Conservancy, such as limitations in short message capacity and frequency, a lack of standardization, and difficulties in cross-departmental collaboration and data sharing. Finally, the paper examines the future development trends of the BeiDou system in the water conservancy sector, emphasizing that as the integration with new technologies progresses and commercialization accelerates, the BeiDou system will play an increasingly important role in Smart Water Conservancy, driving the modernization of the water conservancy industry.