In the ongoing debate over the best methods for deploying sondes — whether through deployment tubes or kiosks — an important conversation is being overlooked. Both of these traditional methods involve significant infrastructure, create potential biases in data collection and face challenges with biofouling.
It's time to shift our focus toward a more practical and effective solution: floating deployment.
At AquaWatch, our floating array of sensors offer a cutting-edge alternative that ensures more reliable water quality monitoring.
The Limitations of Traditional Methods
Deployment Tubes Deployment tubes are often used in water quality monitoring but come with significant limitations:
Infrastructure requirements: Installing deployment tubes requires infrastructure, which can be costly and time-consuming.
Water level variability: These tubes are less effective in environments with fluctuating water levels, as they can become submerged or exposed, leading to inconsistent data collection.
Biofouling: By diverting water flow, deployment tubes create more stagnant environments, which promote the buildup of biofouling on sensors, affecting their accuracy and longevity.
Kiosks
Kiosks, another popular method, also have notable drawbacks:
Sample disruption: The process of collecting samples from kiosks can disrupt the water, potentially skewing the data.
Biofouling: Similar to deployment tubes, kiosks can suffer from biofouling within the tubes, compromising the quality of data collected over time.
Maintenance and risk: The infrastructure needed for kiosks adds layers of complexity and potential points of failure, increasing the risk and cost of maintaining accurate monitoring systems.
Shifting the Conversation: The Case for Floating Deployment
Given the limitations of traditional methods, it's time to change the conversation and consider the advantages of floating deployment solutions. Our floating water monitoring device is a significant advancement in water quality monitoring technology which ensures consistent data collection, reduced biofouling and increased practicality.
Consistent data collection
Our sensor array is designed to float, ensuring that measurements are taken from the same point in the water column every time, regardless of changes in water levels. This consistency is crucial for accurate data.
The floating design adapts to varying environmental conditions, from flooding to low flow, providing reliable data in diverse settings.
Reduced biofouling
Unlike deployment tubes and kiosks, the floating water monitoring device moves with the water, reducing the stagnation that leads to biofouling. This dynamic interaction with the water minimizes the buildup of biological material on sensors, maintaining their accuracy over longer periods.
Practical and cost-effective
Floating platforms require less infrastructure compared to traditional methods, reducing both the initial setup costs and ongoing maintenance expenses.
Our sensors can be quickly and easily deployed, making it a practical solution for a wide range of water quality monitoring applications.
The use of sonde deployment tubes and kiosks both involve significant infrastructure, and create potential data biases due to biofouling and sampling disruptions. By shifting to the AquaWatch floating deployment solutions, we can overcome these challenges and achieve more accurate, reliable, and cost-effective water quality monitoring.
Contact us today so together we can help you to rethink your approach and embrace the practicality and innovation that floating platforms offer.
Comments