Seven ways that data can improve your water management

10th March 2020

How Smart Monitoring brings data-driven decision making to critical water management projects. 

Smart Monitoring data loggers collect information about water management projects and installations, and more advanced systems automatically transmit the data so that site operators or owners can know what is happening without having to visit the site.

Here are seven ways that this kind of data-led intelligence can help improve existing and future water management projects.

1. Improve your maintenance schedules

Water management projects need to be maintained if they are to perform as designed. Maintenance schedules should be set based on real-world expectations for each site; visiting earlier than necessary adds an unwanted level of maintenance cost, while not visiting frequently enough risks underperformance or even failure. 

Smart monitoring systems can provide frequent, regular updates on performance measures such as outlet turbidity levels, helping users and owners to pinpoint exactly when maintenance is needed. In this way, maintenance schedules can be tailored for maximum efficiency.

2. Ensure compliance

Monitoring is often needed to show that a site meets the requirement of some kind of environmental permit. This could mean checking turbidity in a monitoring well on a construction site, or assessing the water quality of an outfall. 

Manual spot samples may not coincide with a problem, and monitoring equipment that does not transmit data may be less likely to prompt early corrective action; smart monitoring offers greater vigilance and supports a more rapid response if a problem arises.

3. Meet your specific needs

Some types of water management project lend themselves to smart monitoring, including those aimed at:

  • Providing flood protection
  • Removing pollution and other materials from surface water runoff
  • Ensuring that outfalls or overflows do not cause environmental harm

Project conditions vary, such as the severity of the flood threat or the contaminants in question; so too do the responses. Smart monitoring systems can be geared to these specific requirements.

The number and location of devices, the parameters they measure, and the frequency of data transmission can all be set to ensure the right response with the right end result.

4. Provide early warning and avoid false alarms

One of the core aims of smart monitoring systems is to alert site owners and operators of any incident of potentially major concern. This could be the rising flood threat indicated by a high water level in a culvert or channel, for example. Site crews might need to be deployed to take action, and the emergency services may even need to be alerted.

By raising alarms and sending notifications, action can be taken a lot more quickly and costly damage averted or mitigated.

5. Demonstrate investment value

Water management projects, such as surface runoff treatment systems, can represent substantial investments for their owners. They do their job, often out of sight, while the owner may be focused on some completely different activity, such as managing the retail development that the treatment system serves.

Smart water monitoring supports the efficient operation of the water management project. It also generates long-term data that can highlight to the owner the ongoing benefits they receive investing in new technologies.

6. Provide reliable, real-world information

Smart water monitoring systems are designed to gather and transmit data. This data will have an immediate or short-term use. It can also be stored for periodic use, such as helping adjust maintenance cycles during the early life of a project.

It can also be archived for longer-term use, perhaps to help the future design of a similar project. This data can also be used to determine upgrade and renewal projects.

7. Help you make the most of limited budgets

Maybe you are a contractor looking to deliver a cost-effective project for a client; maybe you are a contractor or site owner looking to achieve the most effective monitoring possible within a budget. Smart monitoring can help in both respects.

In some instances, if smart monitoring can help guarantee that performance will be maintained, backup measures can potentially be downsized. Also, switching from manual to automated monitoring can bring a much more efficient use of field teams.

Conclusion

From compliance to maintenance, smart monitoring can improve your water management.

It can boost ROI in a number of areas, not just in the technology itself but in other areas including maintenance, compliance and preventing costly events.

Takeaways

  • Smart monitoring devices help improve water management by improving maintenance schedules.
  • Moving away from traditional monitoring can make compliance and maintaining performance more manageable.
  • Data-driven intelligence can help owners and users to build an information resource to support future decisions.

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