Design of a Remote Real-time Groundwater Level and Water Quality Monitoring System for the Philippine Groundwater Management Plan Project

• Main Authors: Oppus, Carlos M, Guzman, Ma. Aileen Leah G, Guico, Maria Leonora, Monje, Jose Claro N, Retirado, Mark Glenn F, Kwong, John Chris T, Ngo, Genevieve C, Domingo, Annael J
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2020
• Subjects: Groundwater Level; Monitoring; Groundwater Quality; Sensor Systems; Remote Real-time Systems; Water Quality Sensors; Computer Sciences; Earth Sciences
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/ecce-faculty-pubs/76; https://archium.ateneo.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1075&context=ecce-faculty-pubs
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

Recent technological advances allow us to utilize remote monitoring systems or real-time access of data. While the use of remote monitoring systems is not new, there are still numerous applications that can be explored and improved on, one such is groundwater level and quality monitoring. In the Philippines, the extraction of groundwater for both domestic use and industrial use are manually monitored by the government’s concerned agency and is done at least once per year. With this current setup, the real and significant state of the groundwater is not reflected in a way that is most valuable to the government and to the community. This project aims to design and develop a remote real-time groundwater level and quality monitoring system. It is intended to provide quantitative data for policy makers in addressing recurrent water shortages in the Philippines. This paper discusses the designed system composed of three modules: power module, sensors and control, and data visualization. These three modules provide real-time data from far-flung locations while being energy-sustainable. Dry runs of the system in a controlled environment yielded excellent results — average data accuracy of 96.63% for all six (6) groundwater quantity and quality parameters namely: pH, temperature, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids, salinity, and static water level (SWL), and 90.63% data transmission reliability. Initial deployment of the system on one of the groundwater monitoring well in Metro Manila, Philippines returned a 91.16% data transmission reliability. The system is currently installed in 20 groundwater monitoring sites all-over the Philippines and is scheduled for more installations.