Remote monitoring functionality of handpumps

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Has anyone in this network attempted to attach sensors to a handpump used by rural communities for lifting water from a borehole? 

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7 Answers

  1. We have been interested in this subject for a long time because we are convinced that a better knowledge of the volumes of water withdrawn from a borehole will contribute to finance the continuity of the water distribution service and the development of rural areas. VERGNET HYDRO has developed its own range of hand (or foot-) pumps equipped with flow meters in order to know the volumes of water fetched. Vergnet hydro has also developed a plug and play connection kit equipped with a flow meter for INDIA pumps, which are the most common pumps. However, this kit requires a higher elevation of the fountain to compensate for the meter's pressure losses.
    These systems (see photos) are currently been deployed on the field in Burkina Faso and Mali.

  2. Laurie

    I have some direct experience here. We have used conventional digital water level recorders placed into hand dug wells and drilled wells, recording level every 15 minutes. We were primarily interested in the seasonal variation in water table, but you can analyse the data pretty easily to get data on when the wells are used - down to what time each day they are used, whether used on a weekend etc.. To install loggers you need to lift the pump heads, but with practice we were able to put one in in about 30 minutes work (if all the bolts cooperated!). We put loggers on India Mk2s and Afridev pumps.

    There is a group at Oxford University (https://www.development.ox.ac.uk/smartpumps) who have been using handle mounted accelerometers to get usage info, warn of mechanical failures and even depth to water.

    In the past I have seen a nice spout mounted sensor that essentially logged whether there was water coming out of the pump by starting a timer circuit when immersed.. The ones I saw were bespoke, but I would think that a modern one could be built simply from an Arduino or Raspberry PI.

     

    Andy McKenzie

     

     

    1 Comment

    1. @LaurieReynolds - this sounds like great info on the monitors themselves. But I gather you need to be able to get data sent to you from this monitoring equipment from the other hemisphere, correct? If so, the telecom tech/equipment seems like the real tricky piece. If you have someone with boots on the ground who can read the data and transmit that to you, you have less need for monitoring equipment. :-)

  5. We use clamp on ultrasonic meters with loggers. on wells to validate water flow quantity 

  6. I have not, but I'm interested in the discussion. Let's start with a couple questions.

    1. When you say *remote* monitoring, are you aiming to have the sensor(s) in place, sending data to you while you are elsewhere? Or are you planning on visiting the pumps/boreholes/monitoring equipment to download the data manually?
    2. What are you hoping to monitor specifically? Quantity pumped, times pumped, quality metrics/contaminants, etc.?
    3. How rural, and where? I live in Appalachia in western Virginia in the United States. It's quite rural in many ways, and yet we have telephone and internet, USPS/FedEx/UPS service, improved roads, etc. There's rural Virginia, rural South Dakota, rural Haiti, etc. You get the idea. :-)

    Cheers

    1 Comment

    1. @Ari, Q1, very remote, site is in Southern Hemisphere, I am in North. Q2 Whether the pump is broken down and stopped working or not. Quantity pumped would be good an quality some way down the line. Q3 no copper, no GSM, only the Sky so satellite seems the most likely option.

      1 Comment reply

      1. Hmm. Well, upside is that the monitoring equipment itself would probably be very simple. Many ways to make it happen, I believe.

        One of the lowest-tech/cheapest could just be a small reservoir with two electrical contacts in it, and as long as water is flowing or has flowed within a certain amount of time (calculate volume required and orifice size for drawdown time), a circuit is closed sending a simple 0/1 signal. Fancier, and likely still very inexpensive option exist for the monitor itself. Hopefully sunlight is something you could count on out there for a small PV cell and battery for power.

        The satellite transmitter is something I know nothing about, though I imagine that is also a fairly simple thing. I have no idea at all about cost of either equipment or service required.

        And, sorry I can only offer the general thoughts, rather than any direct experience or component/process specifications. Here's a thought:

        Check out EnviroDIY, WikiWatershed, and the Stroud Water Research Center. While this is geared toward water quality, water presence/quantity is also something involved in most monitoring projects. I don't know whether the transmitter systems are geared only toward cellular (GSM/CDMA) or also have satellite options, but there's a lot of information, and undoubtedly a community of people who know a heck of a lot more than I do about this stuff.

        https://www.envirodiy.org/