Wastewater level monitoring in sewage networks

In the wastewater recovery system, the sewage network, wastewater flows through small pipes that will join together in large sewer pipes underground. In these pipes the wastewater is transported from one pump station to another towards the sewage treatment plant, often over large distances. Wastewater level monitoring in sewage networks is undertaken in many installations to provide flow information and level monitoring, especially to control pumps in lifting stations and service pits.

To reduce the cost of transporting wastewater from the user to the treatment plant, such pump stations / lifting stations are built to lift the wastewater to a higher level. By lifting it to a higher level, gravity can be used to enable a natural flow of wastewater towards the treatment plant.

Logging the changing wastewater level in sewage networks

Service pits often provide a flood overflow discharge point in case the sewer becomes overloaded with storm water. This occurs when sewers are combined with rain water drainage and when excessive rain or storm water overloads the network. As sewer flooding is a massive problem, a submersible pressure transmitter provides reliable information by efficient wastewater level monitoring of the sewage network, information which is used for logging the changing levels of the wastewater and to plot typical flow rates in the sewer. This data will be used to forecast problems of capacity and to alarm when the sewage network overflows, so maintenance may be scheduled or plans for more capacity optimisation considered.

Additionally, wastewater will often flow through weirs and flumes where high-accuracy, low-range submersible pressure transmitters are used for wastewater level monitoring in sewage networks throughout the whole structure and give an accurate measurement of the flow at that point. Thereby the flow in the network is monitored to provide forecast data for the water treatment facilities.

Wastewater level monitoring in sewage networks is an important tool for any sewage engineer, as by knowing the sewage level the operating efficiency of the sewage system can be enhanced and automated warnings on when sewage infrastructure overloads can warn the engineer of pending problems.