Investigation on the performance of a multi-wire water level detection system using contact sensing for river water monitoring

Abstract

The complexity of the method used in remote sensing for flood monitoring is associated with the necessity of requiring expert services and costly unique facilities. Satellite-based imagery methods still need ground verifications for data comparison which would simply imply that in situ approaches were still reliable. This study investigates the operability of a designed contact-type sensing system using conductor wires intended for water level monitoring in rivers. Although the presented system has been a common concept, factual conclusions of its outdoor operability were unheard and undocumented on fluvial experimentations as most commercially available contact-type water level devices were intended for water tank monitoring only. The sensing accuracy and monitoring reliability have been proven in this study through outdoor experimentations. The detection time, the reading ability and the physical condition of the sensing device were tested under harsh outdoor environment. The increase in water level at a faster rate can be easily detected by the system only at microseconds (µs) range. Likewise, the efficacy of the system to detect the increase and decrease in the water level was proven to work out as actual flood simulation was conducted. The reading stability was also tested by measuring the output voltage of the circuit. It resulted in only 0.22 to 0.31 DC voltage drops recorded between similar level probes (e.g., from Day 1 to Day 30 of all Level 1s) on the sampled 5 wire probes which is just an insignificant loss factor to the operation of the device. In general, the device worked well in accordance with its functionality. The physical condition of the designed system was proven to be reliable as it continuously transmits data up to present.