Install, measure and read out within half an hour? This is possible with Observator’s measurement poles. Aquon recently experienced this. They ordered five conductivity measurement poles from Observator.

Driving the screw pile into the ground is perhaps the most time-consuming part of the installation of a measuring pile. When this job is done, all that remains is to slide on the second piece of pile, which is equipped with the data logger and a sensor.

Aquon managed to install and commission the first measuring pole, for measuring conductivity, within half an hour. The measurement results immediately arrived on Aquon’s server. All five measuring poles were installed within a day. This so-called ‘Compact online salt measurement’ is compact, light, affordable and easy to install by one person. Thanks to the logger with a built-in 4G modem and a built-in solar panel, the set-up can measure unlimitedly and all data is immediately available online.

The ‘Compact online salt measurement’ was initially designed to measure salt intrusion (salinization). This is a recurring phenomenon during dry summers. However, conductivity can of course also be used as an indicator for all kinds of other types of pollution in surface waters. The same setup, with a different sensor, can also be used to measure dissolved oxygen (DO) or pH.

In some places fouling (bio-fouling) can occur so fast that regular cleaning of the sensor is necessary. The costs of this can quickly exceed the purchase costs of the entire measurement setup. Observator has designed a ‘low-maintenance online salt measurement’ for those situations. This uses a sensor where a UV LED prevents or slows down fouling. This results in significant savings in maintenance costs, especially for locations with a lot of biological activity (fouling).