Water / Wastewater 41
4. Installation – Ideally monitors should be quick and easy to install and require limited infrastructure; delivering data within hours of installation. This lowers costs, improves data availability and provides users with greater fl exibility in the choice of monitoring locations.
5. Extra sensor capability – Water quality is also affected by geomorphology and other physical factors so it is often advantageous to measure parameters such as depth and fl ow, for example. Remote monitors should therefore have the capacity to incorporate extra physical or meteorological sensors quickly and easily.
Meteor Communications runs a fl eet of service vehicles for remote cameras & water quality
Portable ESNET system
Meteor’s ESNET systems have been developed to meet these needs, delivering robust high resolution real-time water quality data within minutes of deployment. The systems are available as a complete portable monitoring station or as part of a kiosk pumped system for semi-permanent or fi xed installations. ESNET therefore enables the commissioning of fl exible monitoring networks, tailored to meet the needs of a wide range of catchments challenges.
Challenges aff ecting the establishment
of eff ective river monitoring networks As sewerage undertakers start to implement the monitoring requirements of the Environment Act, a number of key issues will need to be addressed. For many, this will be a new area of activity, so it will be necessary to draw on the experience of those organisations that have been operating river water quality monitoring networks for many years. Some of the key issues are likely to be:
1. Installation location – Careful consideration needs to be given to the choice of deployment location. In some locations a kiosk-based system may be appropriate; in others, a portable system will be more suitable. However, in all cases, it will be necessary for the monitoring location to be representative of the upstream or downstream water quality, so site-specifi c physical constraints may apply. In addition, landowner permission to access the site and install a monitor is likely to be necessary, but may not be forthcoming. However, projects such as Defra’s Demonstration Test Catchments (DTC) have shown how water quality monitoring can inform sustainable agricultural practices, so it is hoped that farmers will regard the provision of access and permission as an opportunity to help improve the environment.
2. Network rationalisation – While the Environment Act calls for monitors upstream and downstream of every asset, there are numerous, mainly urban, locations where storm overfl ows exist in close proximity to each other. Under such circumstances, it may be possible for single monitors to measure the effects of a small group of discharges, and this ‘clustering’ was addressed in a recent Defra consultation.
3. Network management – The effective management of large numbers of remote monitors necessitates signifi cant investment in the resources (staff, vehicles and equipment calibration/maintenance facilities) that are necessary to ensure that monitoring is accurate and reliable.
4. Data Management - The advantage of a Cloud based system is that it provides network managers with the opportunity to rapidly check the health of the catchment on a proactive real-time basis. This is one of the most attractive features of Meteor’s ‘Water Quality as a Service’ program, in which customers do not own the monitors as such; they simply purchase and own the data.
5. Sonde management – Water quality monitors must be calibrated on a regular basis. Meteor, has been the originator of an industry-leading calibration and maintenance methodology based on the fast turnaround of multiparameter sondes. To do this Meteor Communications established a dedicated Water Quality Services Hub, at which sondes are serviced and calibrated in a dedicated lab-based instrument maintenance facility, so that they can be routinely swapped with sondes in the fi eld. To ensure data accuracy and reliability, sonde sensors are tested in the lab to meet or exceed manufacturer tolerances.
6. Data interpretation – Many pollution events have specifi c and identifi able ‘fi ngerprints’. For example, sewage works often produce clearly discernible patterns in ammonium representing daily anthropogenic activity, and rainfall induced agricultural runoff can cause correlated rises in ammonium and turbidity. However, many events can be complex with multiple inputs. As the number of remote monitors increases, careful data management and interpretation tools will be required to help the sector deliver and understand the evidence required to improve water quality in our rivers.
Summary
Clearly, the Environment Act 2021 imposes a requirement for the water/wastewater industry to implement a major network of water quality monitors, delivering data in almost real-time to (what Water UK describes as) a National Environment Data Hub. However, with many years of experience in establishing hundreds of remote continuous river water quality monitors, Meteor’s technical staff already know that storm overfl ows and discharges are not the only factors affecting water quality, and the new networks will help to also highlight and identify other sources of pollution, for the benefi t of all stakeholders.
Meteor Communications has been developing, installing and operating remote water quality monitors for many years, so the technology is already proven. The challenges presented by the establishment of large networks are therefore more likely to be logistical; addressing issues such as monitor location, landowner permission, sonde calibration and exchange, and fi nding the best way to derive insights from large amounts of data.
For over 25 years, Meteor Communications has designed, built and installed remote environmental monitoring systems for global governmental, utility, industrial, consulting and academic organisations. Innovation underpins the success of the company, and all products and solutions have been developed in close cooperation with customers.
EDM Water Quality graph
7. Data Integration and Reporting There will be a requirement to share point-reading data, interpreted event data and periodic environmental impact reporting data. The RESTFul URL Application Programming Interface (API) method of data exchange and integration has been in use for many years now and allows data to be quickly and easily exchanged between the systems of different parties. In addition, the simple and lightweight Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol has emerged as a global standard for data publish and subscribe models and is being offered as a standard service by major cloud hosting providers. System suppliers will also have to provide data reporting that is powerful, effi cient and highly confi gurable. A key requirement of the Environment Act for sewerage undertakers is to report their impact on the environment and a powerful reporting engine for event- aggregations and drill-downs of continuous water quality monitoring data will enable this.
Meteor’s products provide real-time access to vitally important fi eld data, with two main themes. Remote water quality monitoring stations measure background levels, enabling trend analysis and the identifi cation of pollution from diffuse and point sources. Remote, low- power, rugged cameras provide visualisation of key assets such as construction sites, fl ood gates, weirs, fl umes, screens, grills etc. Both the cameras and the water quality monitoring stations provide immediate access to current conditions with alarm capability, which enables prompt remedial action, as well as the optimisation of maintenance activities.
Meteor Communications provides a wide range of off- the-shelf and bespoke monitoring solutions. Most can be deployed within minutes, are solar powered and do not require signifi cant infrastructure to run. Cloud- based data is accessed via secure login to the Meteor Communications data centre. This is achieved using any web-enabled device and provides instant access to live and stored data, which includes an interactive graphical display.
Meteor Communications has a large installed base of remote monitoring stations and the company’s turnover has increased 5-fold in the last 6 years.
Author Contact Details Matt Dibbs - Managing Director • Meteor Communications Ltd. • Address: Unit 12, Bridgegate Centre, Martinfi eld, Welwyn Garden City, Herts. AL7 1JG, UK • Tel: +44 (0)1727 8 999 90 • Email:
enq@meteorcommunications.co.uk • Web:
www.meteorcommunications.co.uk
WWW.ENVIROTECH-ONLINE.COM
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