Digital recorders to measure water level, quality at observation borewells
Ashwini Y S, DH News Service, Bengaluru, Sep 29 2017, 0:56 IST
The Groundwater Authority is taking steps to install digital water level recorders, which will help measure water levels and quality more accurately.
The Authority collects groundwater samples from 1,800 observation borewells that are located at every 100 sq km distance across the state, during both the pre-monsoon and post-monsoon seasons.
Currently, the entire exercise is done manually, making it a cumbersome process. Moreover, the Authority is facing severe shortage of staff, especially geologists. It is in need of at least 120 geologists (five per district), but presently, there are only 36 of them in the entire state.
Authority Director S B Shettenevar told DH that tenders will be floated soon for implementing the Rs 3.5-crore project for installation of digital water level recorders. To begin with, the recorders will be installed in 250 observation borewells.
He said that the Authority is hoping to get funds from the National Hydrology Project-3 and the National Groundwater Management Improvement Scheme (around Rs 600 crore) to install digital recorders for the remaining 1,550 borewells.
Temperature and water levels will be collected four times a day from the GPRS based recorders, which will be relayed via satellite to the data center at the National Informatics Centre (NIC) in Bengaluru. Temperature levels determine the quality of water. If the temperature is too high, it is an indicator of increased salinity.
NIC, which has developed the software, will then push the data onto the Authority’s server, which will subsequently be hosted on its website.
Depleting water table
As per the 10 year average static water level (between 2007 and 2016) in 176 taluks, there is a drastic fall in the levels in 142 taluks, and a marginal increase in 34 taluks.
Kolar is the worst hit with all its taluks witnessing a severe depletion in groundwater. The level in Kolar has depleted by 54.81 mt. Shirahatti in Gadag district is the only taluk which has seen a substantial rise (8.17 mt).