Client Profiles

Introduction

Water in lakes, rivers, the ocean, the air, the soil and underground for over 100 years. In that time we’ve had the chance to participate in many different projects of various complexities and scope around the world. Today we focus on projects involving monitoring water resources (surface water and groundwater) and soil. Our particular focus on cloud-based data acquisition and station connectivity affords us the chance to pursue projects which would benefit from the reduced infrastructure and complexity from having remote monitoring stations connected to the cloud.

We design, manufacture & integrate environmental data acquisition technology systems to:

Manage and protect the environment
Protect property
Save lives
Improve operational efficiencies

Sovereign Consulting, Inc.

Sovereign partnered with Stevens for a groundwater well monitoring project at an abandoned refinery in Wood River, Il. for British Petroleum.The goal is to monitor the temperature profile at different depths in the well. Their monitoring sites include eTracker, Van Essen Diver sensors and Campbell Scientific Temperature Sensor Strings. At one of the sites they have an eTracker and four CTD-Diver sensors going to four different wells to monitor the conductivity, temperature and depth. At another site, they use an eTracker with a Mini-Diver and four Campbell Temperature strings with 8 temperature sensors on each string. None of the sites requires a data logger, saving cost and allowing all configuration of every station to be done remotely. All data is uploaded through a cellular network to Stevens-Connect.

Riverside County Flood Control

Riverside County Flood Control has a rainfall monitoring network that includes 27 eTrackers connected to tipping bucket rain gauges. Rainfall data is collected and transmitted over the cellular network to Stevens-Connect.

Florida Department of Environmental Protection

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection operates 18 tide gaging stations along the Florida coast, mostly along the east coast and the Naples area. They monitor tide level, weather parameters and water quality parameters at most of the stations. Data is collected and transmitted over the cellular network every 6 minutes to Stevens-Connect. The FLDEP system is open to the public and is used by recreational boaters for current tide and weather conditions.

Jamaica Water Resource Authority

Jamaica’s Water Resource Authority (WRA) has deployed approximately 30 eTrackers connected to Stevens-Connect to cover the water resource monitoring of levels and rainfall of various watersheds throughout the island of Jamaica. WRA had variety of rain gauges and other sensors for measuring water level including Stevens shaft encoders and those of other manufacturers. All existing sensors were able to be used in the new cloud-based, eTracker system. Alarms were set up to notify designated individuals of high water level conditions, rainfall intensity, and the power health of each station. The World Bank has visited Jamaica WRA and is impressed with their implementation of a true cloud-based hydrological monitoring system. As a result, they provided Jamaica some additional funding and ask that the WRA be point of contact and resource for other Caribbean islands.

Chinese Ecosystem Research Network (CERN)

The dynamics and variability of soil moisture at small hillslope transects were analyzed by rainfall experiments in which the influence of crop type and slope angle were considered. Soil moisture variability and dynamics during the rainfall-runoff process were monitored using soil sensors and continuously measured after rainfall ceased to investigate soil moisture dynamics and patterns by the method of data visualization. Relationships between soil moisture and runoff (surface and subsurface flow) and response lag times of soil moisture at different slope positions and soil layers were investigated. The dynamics of soil moisture during the entire crop growth stage were also analyzed. Results showed that soil moisture exerted strong influence on runoff generation, but the relationships were strongly affected by crop type. The research used HydraProbe soil sensors, Stevens’ Tipping Bucket Rain Gauge, eTracker, and Stevens-Connect.

California Air Resources Board

Stevens developed a cloud-based camera monitoring and alarm system for CARB which monitors air quality and automatically captures images covering a 360° view every six minutes and uploads them to the cloud via eTracker. At each remote location, a Met One air quality sensor system is located with the camera system. CARB set an alert condition based on air quality parameters being measured. If an alert condition is triggered, the designated personnel are immediately notified. From there they can immediately access the images from that location online to visually see possible causes to the air quality alarm condition before deciding to send out personnel to investigate. CARB has eight of these remote stations and the images are being directed to their private cloud server.