The Hydrometric system was apparently donated or installed by the Americans, but I found that it was temporaly out of order. There was a rack with SCADA hardware, unconnected. The local professionals are working without resources, and taking into account the environment, doing a tremendous job.
The irrigation is by flooding, and some plots have been levelled by lasers and looked very good. They added sulphur to the water, possibly to change the permeability of clay soils.
The underground water flow coming from the North is being pumped out by a series of boreholes more or less connected into a network. The pumps suffer continuous breakdowns because of vandalism and stealing of the cables. No one saw anybody stealing anything. Surprisingly, the pumps had no pressure meters - manometers - and the steel spring served as pressure valve. The pumps last about two three years because of the sand, but they said the water came up very clean without any sand. No sand separation equipment was seen. Three or more pumps are being managed as a system, so when one is down, other can take its place. The whole operation is manual, they have a man whose job is to visit all the pumps once a day. The oiling of the pumps and maintenance is being done by the Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada, a second tier organization, and not by the Distritos de Riego.
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I didn't know that Mexico had any monitoring and/or SCADA in their well field or Alamo Canal. I'm not aware of any telemetering efforts. What type of equipment? PLC's or Data Loggers?
I'm assuming most of the sensors are 4-20ma (Analog) based.
Just wondering.
dg
dg
As seen in the pic, they do have a nice building with a well equipped monitoring room with five large monitors, and a computer room with lots of electronic equipment. My attention was grabbed by a lot of boxes and cables on a rack with SCADA written on it, because in Israel we do use SCADA with telemetry stations. As said, in the specific time when I was visiting, the system apparently was down, but that is only my impression and I may be wrong. Telemetry is not my area and am unable to answer your questions. We in Israel have upgraded our valves and physical machinery to be operated by remote computers - but this a completely hand operated system. Having water and manpower in over abundance, no one feels any need to upgrade the system.
J:
Having SCADA and telemetry would give them the advantage of being able to 'see' events in real-time. In a canal system, it means getting water to the 'end user' in the far end of the system without putting too much water into the system (spilling water).
Gate control is critical in maintaining head for proper delivery. Automation really helps. However, utilizing it is not a turn-key affair.
The skill level of the field maintainer usually makes or breaks the success of a system.
Just the way I see it.
dg
Head in the channel is being mantained by structures calles "picos de pato" (duck bill)that are spillway type of structures. Gates are opened and closed manually. There is a local invention of a triple gate, each discharging different amounts of water. Opening and closing these three different gates in different combinations, they are able to measure out and deliver almost any Q flow of water. Simple but adequate. As said, they dont feel that they are missing something. In Israel we have developed automatization mostly because our fields are within enemy fire range, and many operators and farmers were killed. Now we monitor and operate everything from central control rooms. More and more computers are taking over and operators are free to walk around and receive field data and send orders (in case requiring intervention) by cell phones. People loves the system because they are paid for working while say sleeping with their wifes.
J:
What you refer to is called a 'duck bill' weir. Yes, quite useful and quite common in canal systems. Automation comes into play when metering off water into lateral canals from the main stem. Real-time automation control also enables the operators to use different control techniques in their system. Some systems can even SMS (text message) the ditch rider.
If your client is comfortable with the present methods employed that's a good thing. Other times they want something that they have read about (or heard about in a conference) but is not practical for them due to staffing and support issues. Most ditch riders hate automation and see it as a means to diminish the scope of their work. Not true, it modifies the nature of their work.
dg
Here in Mesa the Salt River Project has a mixed system. The main canals have microwave links that seem to link to height meters, but the laterals all seems to be manually operated. Having had the chance to crawl over the system here in Mesa it seems that
All water deliveries down to the field are regulated by a timetable, and the timetables are passed around in advance for the farmers to sign up for the amount they want.
An interesting feature of this system is that many of the older neighborhoods that were built on farmland have irrigated yards. These neighborhoods have a small lined ditch running through them that feeds each yard in succession.
RD:
The guy that runs that system knows his business. I will pass on your observations when I see him.
BTW, are you interested in working in water? If so check out the program at Gateway college. They have good two year programs in both waste water and hydrotech.
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