Dam Monitoring in South Africa
The purpose of the Komati River Basin Development Project is to assure water availability in order to promote economic development. OTT’s part of the project was to supply dataloggers for the monitoring of the river flows into and out of the Maguga and the Driekoppies dams.
The technical needs were high-level:
- Technology designed specifically for environmental monitoring applications
- Robust in construction for long-term deployment
- Long-life internal power source
- Small installation footprint
- Easy to install and maintain
- Remote data transmission capabilities; GSM or satellite
- Software system that is compatible with customer’s IT infrastructure
- Flexible data management and data handling.
OTT ecoLog 500
Medición del nivel y de la temperatura del agua y transmisión remota vía UMTS/HSPA+ o GSM/GPRS
Registrador de datos compacto de agua subterránea diseñado especialmente para la medida, almacenamiento y transmisión de datos de nivel de agua y temperatura. Instrumento de alta calidad, eficiencia en consumo eléctrico y con precio muy atractivo.
- Aguas superficiales Aguas subterráneas
- Sensor de presión relativa con célula de medición cerámica capacitiva
- Nivel/presión, temperatura de agua
- Módem integrado (UMTS/HSPA+ o GSM/GPRS), con pack de pilas de litio, vida útil de hasta 10 años
- 0 … 4, 10, 20, 40 y 100 m
- ±0,05% FS
- Sí
OTT ecoLog 800
Medición del nivel, de la temperatura y de la conductividad del agua y transmisión remota vía UMTS/HSPA+ o GSM/GPRS
El OTT ecoLog 800 es un sistema económico y compacto de monitorización de aguas subterráneas para la medición, el almacenamiento y la transmisión remota del nivel de agua, de la temperatura y la conductividad.
- Aguas superficiales Aguas subterráneas
- Sensor de presión relativa con célula de medición cerámica capacitiva y célula de medición de conductividad de 4 electrodos de grafito
- Nivel/presión, temperatura de agua, conductividad específica, salinidad, TDS
- Módem integrado (UMTS/HSPA+ o GSM/GPRS), con pack de pilas de litio, vida útil de hasta 10 años
- 0 … 4, 10, 20, 40 y 100 m
- ±0,05% FS
- Sí
OTT Hydras 3
Gestión de redes de medición HIS
El software OTT Hydras 3 ofrece una gestión profesional de los datos que incluye desde la consulta y la representación clara y lógica de los datos y su evaluación estadística hasta la gestión de alarmas.
- Hidrometría, meteorología y tecnología del medioambiente
- Microsoft Windows 95/98/2000, Windows NT 4.0, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 11
- Editor gráfico, visualización de mapas, gestión de alarmas, parametrización y consulta de datos de estaciones, autoimportación de datos, visualización de datos
The Komati River Basin Water Authority (KOBWA) was established in 1993 with the purpose of implementing the first phase of the Komati River Basin Development Project. It comprised the design, construction, operation and maintenance of the Driekoppies Dam in South Africa and the Maguga Dam in Swaziland. The purpose of the project is to assure water availability in order to promote economic development, so the tasks are:
- Evaluating the hydrology of the Komati Basin to determine water availability
- Developing and implementing decision support systems to optimize water allocation/supply
- Facilitating communication between KOBWA and stakeholders on system operation
The remote monitoring system was designed with the following hardware components and functions:
- 9 ecolog800 units and 2 ecoLog500 units were deployed at flow measuring points within the KOBWA water management area. All equipment was installed at existing weir sites in South Africa and Swaziland with the rivers crossing borders of both countries
- Parameters are recorded at 15 min intervals and reported 4-hourly via GSM/GPRS using FTP transfer to a secure server hosted by OTT.
- The ecoLog units had to be specially modified to allow for installation in pipes. The vented cables had to be cut, pulled into the cable pipes and then specially prepared and joined in housings specified by OTT Hydromet in Kempten.
The remote monitoring system was designed with the following software components and functions:
- OTT Hydras3 + RX software was installed on a local PC at the KOBWA offices at Driekoppies Dam, Schoemansdal, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa.
- Data is retrieved via an internet connection using FTP format and the database is populated automatically.
- Hydras3 software provides graphical interface and data export functions into other formats (text, Excel).