Lake Health Monitoring

iQuest partnered with Waikato University's biology department to provide high-tech monitoring of lake health in both NZ and China.

Two installations have been completed so far. The first is in Lake Rotorua in the North Island of NZ and the second is in Lake Taihu, China.

The specially designed buoys are fully self-contained with solar power, GPRS telemetry and a range of water quality and meteorological instruments.

A DS-4483 datalogger and GPRS iCE3 form the datalogging and telemetry core. Parameters measure include water temperature at various depths, pH, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll, underwater light level, wind speed and direction, humidity, barometric pressure and air temperature.

The data is unloaded via GPRS and stored on the iQuest Global Data Network system. It is transferred to the university by automated FTP. In the case of the Rotorua system, a second site on nearby Mount Tarawera provides weather information that augments the buoy data. The local regional council, Environment Bay of Plenty is a stakeholder in the project and data is transferred to their HydroTel system.

Lake Site
Datalogger: DS4483
Communications: GPRS (iCE3)
Instrumentation:

• 1x Vaisala WXT510 weather sensor
• 2 x D-Opto dissolved oxygen/temperature
• 1 x 11 element Templine temperature string
• 1 x Chlorophyll
• 2 x Light Level
• 1 x Temp Hion chloride
• 1 x Vaisala WXT510 Weather Transmitter

Weather site
Datalogger: DS4483
Communications: GPRS (iCE3)
Instrumentation:
Vector A101 anemometer
Vector W2O0P wind speed
Vaisala PTB101 barometric pressure
Ota TB rain gauge.