Automatic water level and water quality monitoring

Abstract

For any programme of efficient water management to be successful, continuous monitoring of water level and quality in the ground, rivers, lakes and reservoirs etc. is necessary. It is essential to map, measure and monitor the extent and quality of both subsoil aquifers and surface fresh water resources. In case of water level, reliable and accurate data is required, well in time, to assess groundwater conditions such that adverse situations like drought and loss of pumpage in agriculture and domestic water supply can be efficiently handled. However, the monitoring task becomes gigantic and expensive when the number of sites and parameters to be monitored increases requiring not only suitable sensors but also automated monitoring from a central location. This paper discusses economical automatic water monitoring systems that provide a variety of solutions ranging from unattended monitoring of a single borehole for use by industry to monitoring of hundreds of boreholes spread over a wide geographical area from a central location. The paper discusses critical parameters monitored, a comprehensive range of water level and quality sensors that are available and can be monitored online, sophisticated dataloggers, typical installation schemes, few typical data monitored and the useful conclusions drawn from it. The paper also discusses telemetry and web-based monitoring solutions that allow water level/quality at remote locations to be monitored continuously, in near real time, from a central location that also sends alerts through short message service (SMS) and e-mail. The solutions enable groundwater researchers and decision makers to have quick access to the groundwater/surface water data at less effort and cost.