Remote River Water Quality Monitoring
For much of 2025 / 2026 we have worked with one particular water utility service provider to design / deliver and install technology to monitor water quality in fulfilment of the Environment Act 2021 Section 82.
This has been a major project for us, starting first with the development of the monitoring equipment itself and then spreading our service offering to whatever has needed to be done to successfully deliver the technology and obtain the all-important data from it.
The rivers to be monitored can vary massively, from small streams that you can jump across to major rivers that are 80m or more in width. In some instances the river run through or adjacent to land owned by the client, whereas in some instances the rivers run through public spaces and as such the monitoring devices are accessible to the public. These differences warrant different monitoring technologies to be deployed for best performance with minimal impact on the environment and the general public.
Our end-client has had some aggressive targets for deployment of monitoring technologies in terms of both number of units deployed and timescales. In order to fulfil the requirement we have played multiple roles on the project team, including:
- – initial site surveys & recording, culminating in the recommendations for which type of monitoring technology would be most suitable and where it would be best deployed
- – design / development of several monitoring technology options to meet the different needs
- – transfer of design to (two) manufacturing teams and on-going support to manufacture
- – assistance with procurement of parts, especially long lead-time items
- – development of installation procedures / practices and tools
- – development of installation procedures
- – on-site training and support to the installation teams
- – provision of installation hardware kits
- – development of a sustainable powering strategy
- – development of solar powered H/W to deliver against the powering strategy
- – development of access products such as steps, walkways and platforms to provide a safe working environment for the maintenance teams
We hope to continue supporting this initiative to help meet the on-going technology roll-out plans.