Sustainable IoT Data Integrity for Environmental Monitoring Systems Using Distributed Ledger Technologies

Abstract

Environmental monitoring systems rely on large-scale Internet of Things (IoT) deployments to capture continuous data streams describing air quality, water resources, and ecological dynamics. The reliability of these systems depends not only on data availability but also on the integrity, transparency, and long-term trustworthiness of the collected information. However, conventional data management approaches lack mechanisms to guarantee tamper-resistant records while maintaining operational sustainability. This work presents a sustainable approach to IoT data integrity by integrating distributed ledger technologies (DLT) into environmental monitoring infrastructures. Rather than focusing solely on transaction-level performance, the proposed approach considers system-level sustainability, including resource constraints at the edge, continuous data generation, and initial deployment feasibility under realistic operational conditions. An end-to-end architecture combining IoT sensing devices, edge processing, and IOTA Rebased as the notarization backend is designed to support continuous data anchoring without disrupting real-time monitoring requirements. Results from a 24-hour empirical study (2,342 notarization events) show a mean end-to-end latency of 2,618 ms and a success rate of 98.94%. The study highlights how careful system design enables a balance between trust, scalability, security, and sustainability, providing a practical pathway for deploying trustworthy environmental monitoring systems at scale.