Evenlode Catchment Monitoring
The Evenlode Catchment Management Project has established a programme of ultra high resolution water quality monitoring to support catchment management initiatives in the River Evenlode. Atkins Global provide the overall project lead, with Meteor Communications providing a complete monitoring package for the project.
The requirements of the monitoring programme were:
- Real time monitoring of Ammonium, Turbidity, Conductivity, Dissolved Oxygen and Temperature
- Real time monitoring of River Level, weather conditions and Rainfall
- Monthly calibration / sonde changeover regime
- Event driven triggering of autosamplers based on flow / weather
- Fortnightly spot sampling and laboratory sample analysis
Three sub-catchments of the Evenlode were selected for monitoring: Westcote Brook, Bledington Stream and Longborough Stream.
On each sub-catchment a real-time monitoring station has been deployed, returning data every 30 minutes to a secure web portal. The system consists of three real time monitoring stations and a total of nine monitoring locations.
Meteor work closely with Atkins Global to provide a complete monitoring solution including:
- Site Survey with Atkins consultant, local landowners and stakeholders to agree monitoring locations and discuss the monitoring programme
- Assembly and test of monitoring systems prior to deployment
- Installation of monitoring system
- Provision of real time data view web portal with optional hyperlinks for stakeholder engagement
- Monthly sonde changeovers, with calibrate Environment Agency NLS laboratories
- Daily data integrity checks and data analysis
- Proactive alerts to the client of events, and resolution of issues
This monitoring service is being provided as a comprehensive lease package. A fixed monthly fee gives access to a complete field to desktop service.
All service and analysis fees were agreed in advance for all aspects of the monitoring regime to provide a proactive yet manageable solution to event triggered sampling, providing Atkins Global with a known cost at the outset.
Meteor provided all of the monitoring equipment, site field resources and data hosting for the project, creating a one stop shop for all aspects of the monitoring programme. With a dedicated project manager there is a single point of contact for all stakeholders.
The system was deployed in October 2016 and has been returning high quality, high resolution data to establish a baseline for the catchment works. In addition auto-sampler runs have been triggered based on rainfall and flow events in the catchment, to start characterising the catchment.
