The demands on our existing wastewater networks are many and varied. Urban areas are expanding rapidly in order to meet the demand for new housing. This directly affects the quantity of wastewater that enters the system from households and reduces the capacity of a sewer to cope with flood events. In addition, we also have to factor in the loss of permeable surfaces through drained area creep in both urban and rural areas. This extra volume of rainfall can overload the system, particularly when connected to the foul sewer. Finally, climate change is projected to bring wetter winters and longer high-intensity rainfall further increasing the risk of sewer flooding.

The benefits of long term monitoring in wastewater networks include a reduction in both frequency and impact of pollution events. Permanent installation of remote monitoring equipment helps to alert network operators to immediate problem sites. It also improves understanding of the network performance and delivers real data to assist with the development and testing of advanced network models.

The Intelligens intrinsically safe data logger sits at the heart of all the HWM wastewater solutions. Housed in a rugged IP68 enclosure and fitted with a GPRS or 3G modem, the unit’s advanced power management allows for 5+ years data collection and transmission under standard operating conditions. An advanced alarm regime can be configured for each channel and threshold conditions set which will trigger faster logging and accelerated data transmission during alarm conditions.

The data logger and associated interfaces are compatible with a variety of different sensors including Doppler-effect velocity, hydrostatic depth, ultrasonic level, radar level and digital inputs from rain gauges or float alarms. This allows HMW to offer complete monitoring systems suitable for permanent or temporary flow surveys, level monitoring or flood level alarm. Typical applications for the equipment include foul, combined and storm water sewers. It can also be used for open channel or outflow monitoring.