Good news… You can now monitor the water level in Mount Burr Swamp anytime, online!

Exciting news for wetland data enthusiasts! It is now possible to view real time water levels in Mount Burr Swamp online.

Thanks to support from the Growing Data Foundation a solar powered water level sensor has been installed in deep water within the wetland. This sends information to a solar powered LoRaWAN gateway installed in the shearing shed, which talks to the internet.

Leo Gaggle (GDF) and Ben Taylor (NGT) installing a solar panel and aerial onto the roof of the shearing shed, part of the new LoRaWAN gateway.

Ben preparing for the water level sensor installation, Mount Burr Swamp.

Click this dashboard to connect to the last month of data (or adjust the monitoring period on the dashboard to suit) – save it as a favourite if you like what you see! Data collection began on the 3rd of December, so at this stage we simply see a plot of declining water levels (see below), as expected at this time of year. But in the months and years ahead the dashboard will tell a very interesting story of the water level history of Mount Burr Swamp from this point on.

Water level data on display for Walker Swamp via the new Water Level Sensor – as of December 3rd 2019.

The water level is presented in meters AHD (Australian Height Datum), i.e. meters above sea level. The current sill elevation, or maximum water level, in Mount Burr Swamp is 78.60 mAHD. One of the encouraging outcomes of restoration has been that the maximum water level has been achieved every year, and the wetland has not dried completely, since NGT volunteers constructed the temporary regulator in August 2016. To date, we have obtained this information manually. Now we can see it online and live. The data can be downloaded remotely too, meaning we can archive it very easily.

Now that the LoRaWAN gateway is installed, we will be able to install other sensors throughout the property and see them live on the dashboard as well. For example, we could install water level sensors in some of the currently unrestored wetlands on the property to gather important pre-restoration data, which we can compare to the water levels achieved following restoration. There is a wide range of different environmental sensors available, so stay tuned as this aspect of our monitoring program develops.

NGT is extremely grateful to Leo Gaggl and John Ruciak from the Growing Data Foundation for their generous  support.