The Requirement

To monitor water level in six locations within three mountainous ranges, Mont Rochelle, Theewaterskloof and Du Toits Catchment in South Africa.

Access to the monitoring locations is extremely challenging, with some areas only being accessible by helicopter. Telemetry was a clear solution to avoid arduous monthly journeys to download water level data manually. Signal was a cause for concern due to the remote location of the sites.

The Solution

High level precision Keller pressure sensors were chosen specifically due to the environment of the monitoring locations. Two sensors were installed at each of the mountain ranges and were deployed within a stilling well in oasis ponds with standing water conditions. Our high accuracy surface pressure sensors have a pressure range of 0-3m and include vented cable so no barometric compensation is required.

Due to the locations of each site and potential concerns for signal, we installed a network of DataNodes, Repeaters and a DataHub at each site. The sensors were connected to a DataNode and each DataHub (which all included their own rain gauge) was positioned centrally on the mountain ridges.

Where a DataNode was not within line of sight of the Hub, we installed repeaters to bounce the signal from each location. The DataNodes are logging every 15 minutes and the data is uploaded to the server every hour.