Congestion in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) not only causes severe information loss but also leads to excessive energy consumption. To address this problem, a novel scheme for congestion avoidance, detection and alleviation (CADA) in WSNs is proposed in this paper. By exploiting data characteristics, a small number of representative nodes are chosen from those in the event area as data sources, so that the source traffic can be suppressed proactively to avoid potential congestion. Once congestion occurs inevitably due to traffic mergence, it will be detected in a timely way by the hotspot node based on a combination of buffer occupancy and channel utilization. Congestion is then alleviated reactively by either dynamic traffic multiplexing or source rate regulation in accordance with the specific hotspot scenarios. Extensive simulation results under typical congestion scenarios are presented to illuminate the distinguished performance of the proposed scheme. Congestion in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) not only causes severe information loss but leads to excessive energy consumption. To address this problem, a novel scheme for congestion avoidance, detection and alleviation (CADA) in WSNs is proposed in this paper. By exploiting data characteristics, a small number of representative nodes are chosen from those in the event area as data sources, so that the source traffic can be suppressed proactively to avoid potential congestion. It will be detected in a timely way by the hotspot node based on a combination of buffer occupancy and channel utilization. Congestion is then alleviated reactively by either dynamic transmission multiplexing or source rate regulation in accordance with the specific hotspot scenarios. the distinguished performance of the proposed scheme.