NSW State Forest watersched monitoring

Environment Information Technology (EIT)
Telemetry, Data, and Control Systems for Industry, Science & Agriculture E-mail contact info@eitechnology.com.au

Hydrology

Small scale water catchment monitoring. The Department of Forestry is measuring water movement through a small water catchment ( watershed ) in a wood lot located just north of the town of Ballina on the North Coast of the state of News South Wales.
The parameters measured include soil moisture and rainfall. Soil moisture is measured using Sentek EnviroSMART soil probes. These probes provide a method of profiling soil moisture data at 10 cm intervals down through the soil profile. Rainfall is measured using a raingauge attached to the data recorder.
Soil probes are located at the base of the small catchment and also half way up a hillside and also at the top of the hill side. The positioning of these probes allows scientists to view water movement through the soil profile and subsequent translocation down the hill. The difficulty of connecting the probes to a central data recorder over rough terraine and wooded areas was overcome using EIT radio data telemetry. Each probe is fitted with an EIT 433 MHz low power data transmitter. . These transmitters collect information from the probe at 10 minute intervals and transmits to the recorder located in the valley several hundreds of meters below.
The use of EIT telemetry and data recorder greatly simplifies installation as no cabling is required between remote probes and the central data recorder. The central data recorder is equipped with a GSM cell modem allowing remote data access over the digital telephone network. Equipment used EIT R Tech data recorder EIT Data analysis software Wavecom GSM modem EIT 433 Mhz low power data transceivers Sentek EnviroSMART soil moisture probes Soil moisture measured at seven depths through the profile down to 2.0 meters