Real Time Monitoring System for a Groundwater Supply: England
Real Time Monitoring System for a Groundwater Supply: England
In 2023 Flow-5 installed a real-time monitoring system for a groundwater supply (borehole pumping) system in the south of England. This monitoring system provides a continuous feed of water level, flow rate, power consumption and system security data which is stored, managed and viewed in real time on Flow-5’s cloud-based data management platform.
The client approached Flow-5 looking for a way of monitoring the performance of their borehole supply system, allowing any long term and short-term issues to be identified as early as possible. The borehole at this site had previously suffered from a loss of efficiency over time and pump breakdown before it was rehabilitated; the client wanted to make sure that any potential issues could be better monitored and managed in future, preventing breakdown and escalating pumping costs.
An initial appraisal of the borehole and pumping system was completed, allowing a basic Monitoring Plan to be produced. This monitoring plan presented the parameters that should be monitored, expected / min / max values for each and the recommended frequency of monitoring. A suitable monitoring system setup to meet these requirements was specified, designed and costed from this.
It was decided that a wireless (LoRaWAN) monitoring system would be well suited to the site and cost effective. A series of sensors were installed sending data every 15 minutes to a local gateway where it is fed through to the cloud-based data management platform. The following wireless sensors / transmitters were installed:
- Borehole water level
- Flow rate (in-line flowmeter)
- Power consumption
- Leak Detection
- Door lock sensor
The incoming data is stored, managed and viewed in real time on Flow-5’s cloud-based data management platform, which can be accessed remotely from anywhere (with login and internet connection). Bespoke dashboards were made for this project to allow data to be easily viewed and managed. The platform allows alarms to be set to specific trigger levels (as dictated in the monitoring plan), with alerts sent via SMS and / or email when trigger levels are exceeded or anomalous data is detected (inferring a breakdown or loss or performance).
This platform also allows data reports to be easily exported, for example flowmeter data for submission to regulatory bodies (Environment Agency) as part of annual abstraction licence returns.
Want to know more about our real time monitoring services? Contact Flow-5 here.
