Water quality monitoring, VAR-ELY

Centre for Economic Development, Transport and Environment of South-West Finland coordinates a KIPSI project, that aims to reduce the environmental load of farming fields to Baltic Sea with gypsum treatment of the soil. Reduction of nutrient and solids load is evaluated with three online monitorings stations.

2020–2022

Centre for Economic Development, Transport and Environment of Southwest Finland

Southwest Finland

EHP installed the stations in March 2020 to three different rivers: Tarvasjoki, Vähäjoki and Paattistenjoki. Tarvasjoki and Vähäjoki are intensely monitored and data from Paattistenjoki is used as a reference.

The monitoring stations measure water level, temperature, turbidity and conductivity. Stations are powered by solar panels and batteries and the measurements are done once in an hour. Based on EHP’s experience, installations to the river could be done so that the stations can be operated throughout the year also when the river freezes. Installation method takes into account also easy maintenance of the sensors: sensors are easy to lift from the river for regular cleaning.

Although the sensors are equipped with automatic cleaning mechanism, they need regular manual maintenance and calibration. In this project, VAR-ELY is responsible for basic cleaning and EHP takes care of more extensive maintenance twice a year.

Monitoring data is analyzed in EHP Dataservice, including automatic alarms for supervising the results. In addition, a data quality evaluation and classification are done by an EHP specialist.