Sedgemoor District Council

As part of its ongoing programme to prevent flooding and surcharging of manhole chambers, Sedgemoor District Council has commissioned Detectronic to deliver a level monitoring telemetry project across a variety of different sites within the boundary of Sedgemoor District Council.

Objectives

• To implement a level monitoring telemetry project
• To monitor and measure levels at three separate sites
• To deliver robust data to support onoging flood and surcharge prevention

Planning

Following a number of site meetings with Richard Dunn, Land Drainage & Port Officer with Sedgemoor District Council, we devised a bespoke water level and groundwater monitoring scheme.

Detectronic site crews have installed MSFM Lite monitors with pressure transducer interfaces at three sites: Bays Pond in Cheddar, Blake Gardens in Bridgwater and Rosewood Park in Burnham on Sea, a public open space on a disused landfill site.

Implementation

The first monitor is located in the centre of the village of Cheddar. Here the water level of a pond is being monitored to avoid the pond surcharging and causing localised flooding. The pond level rises and falls depending on the amount of rainfall in the upper catchment and how much water is extracted for water use.

At Blake Gardens in Bridgwater, the MSFM Lite monitor is installed in a watercourse upstream of a culvert and is used to monitor the level of the watercourse that does become tide locked on spring tides. When tide locking occurs on the higher tides, this can cause the culvert to surcharge and overflow which does flood the local public open space. A flood barrier has been installed to avoid properties nearby from being flooded.

Finally, in Rosewood Park Burnham on Sea, we added two MSFM Lite monitors, one in a borehole – next to a football pitch! – and one in a wet well sump. As Rosewood Park is a public open space built on a former tip site, it is imperative that leachate water levels are monitored. There is a slight risk that, if leachate levels were to climb due to increase in ground water, the leachate could surcharge from manhole chambers.

Analysis and reporting

With all the monitors installed and in place, Richard and his team are able to monitor and log water levels at timed intervals. Each monitor is also fitted with an alarm that will alert Richard and his team to any potential issues so they can be dealt with quickly and efficiently.

Should an issue arise due to a faulty logger or no data received, our site crews are always on call to check the monitors and carry out any maintenance work that is required to ensure optimum functionality.

Results

This is an ongoing project.