Find out what’s happening with the water with WT’s groundwater water flow management equipment
To find out where the water is going, one needs to monitor diversions from surface water such as streams and rivers, and groundwater such as wells, along the way the water is traveling. In order to conserve or manage water, it is critical to know the details of how water is being used; it must be monitored in water conveyances such as canals and pipelines with special emphasis on well heads in areas where groundwater availability is becoming a critical issue.
WT has a very long history of monitoring water flow. Our first weir was installed on a very remote stream in the Siskiyou Mountains near Selma, OR in 1983 for a proposed hydroelectric station. Since that time, WT has installed permanent and temporary surface and groundwater monitoring stations throughout the United States and Central America, including Alaska. At first, the stations required regular visits to remove strip charts and maintain equipment. Now, thanks in part to WT innovations, measurements are recorded and transmitted electronically over vast distances in real-time.
WT supplies or makes and installs the systems used to collect water flow data and to transmit and store data; WT also provides maintenance and support to keep systems operating efficiently.
Groundwater metering
Groundwater monitoring can then be achieved by taking flow data from meters installed on discharge pipelines at pumping stations. WT has developed the WiSI mini-RTU to vastly improve cost-efficiency for networks of meter monitoring stations. The fully integrated self-contained WiSI will reduce the cost of capturing data and transmitting it to a Base Station by at least 75%. It never needs a battery, making RTU maintenance a thing of the past. The RTU is deployed in minutes in a 2″ pipe that can be deployed as easily attaching the RTU to a meter or level sensor at a Stilling Well and pushing it into the ground where there is at least a little sunlight and a radio path to a Base Station or repeater. After about 1 hour the system will start transmitting station data and alarms on a user-defined frequency; that’s it and all for 25% of the cost of more traditional RTUs.
The WiSI cannot be used for every data collection application. Where autonomous data collection and significant data storage a requirement, WT manufactures a line of RTUs specifically for those purposes as well.
Surface water monitoring
Surface water diverted from rivers and streams is generally monitored by measuring flow in calibrated channels be they natural or manufactured. Typical measuring devices include weirs, for example, Cipolletti and Submerged Orifice calibrated flumes such as Parshall or Ramp, open channels that have been carefully and repeatedly measured, or pipelines fed by any sort of gravity diversion. Sensors are deployed to measure the depth of water flowing through the calibrated environment to calculate the area of the cross-section where the sensor is located. This is then multiplied by the velocity of water described by the level of water flowing through a weir or flume or by a flow organic measuring device either electronic or manual.
Regardless of the method, regular measurements of flow must be recorded over extended periods of time. Watch Technologies makes, installs, and maintains this type of equipment. Typical products needed for surface water flow measurements other than the weirs, flumes, or pipelines, are Data Loggers, Stilling Wells, depth transducers and shaft-encoders, Remote Terminal Units (RTU assemblies), Telemetry systems (radio, phone, cell-modem, satellite), and Base Station software for systems that need to display and distribute data.
WT has developed the WiSI mini-RTU to vastly improve cost-efficiency for networks of meter monitoring stations. The fully integrated self-contained WiSI will reduce the cost of capturing data and transmitting it to a Base Station by at least 75%. It never needs a battery, making RTU maintenance a thing of the past. The RTU is deployed in minutes in a 2″ pipe that can be deployed as easily attaching the RTU to a meter or level sensor at a Stilling Well and pushing it into the ground where there is at least a little sunlight and a radio path to a Base Station or repeater. After about 1 hour the system will start transmitting station data and alarms on a user-defined frequency; that’s it and all for 25% of the cost of more traditional RTUs.
WT surface water monitoring projects include:
Barker Ranch, a river diversion and canal control system involving large submerged weirs
Open channels at Chapman Creek Reservoir, an automated reservoir discharge control system.
Contact Watch Technologies to get the systems you need to monitor and control surface and ground water.
