Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency is launching a nationwide “smart water” program to monitor one of the world's most important resources. Powered by IBM, the program will use a network of smart sensors, wireless transmitters, and analytic software to continuously monitor and manage water quality along the country’s coastline and in swimmable lakes and rivers.

It’s all part of the European Union’s Bathing Water Directive, which on its face may seem like a simple move to preserve beaches for tourists, but is actually a huge first step in the world’s next big climate-change-related resource battle.

The directive — part of the EU’s Water Framework Directive, which calls for the protection of all water sources — mandates that the water quality in “bathing areas,” that is beaches, lakes, and rivers where people swim, be not only constantly monitored but also managed.

These things were being monitored before, but, much in the same way as it is in other countries that monitor such things, that monitoring was traditionally conducted by teams of scientists w