A new Australian designed and built ‘intelligent’ device has received the NSW government tick of approval to enable irrigators to comply with forthcoming floodplain harvesting measurement regulations.
Floodplain harvesting, the diversion of floodplain waters into on farm storages for later use, is an important resource in agriculture. To maintain environmental flows and protect water supply for downstream users, the NSW government is introducing mandatory monitoring and reporting of water take from the floodplains.
To comply with the imminent monitoring and reporting requirements of the NSW Department of Planning and Environment (DPE) Floodplain Harvesting Policy, farmers will have to install a storage meter and a local intelligence device (LID) on designated dams , which will transmit the measurements back to the regulator.
Newcastle-based company Novecom, specialists in monitoring, sensors and the internet of things (IoT), has developed a LID to meet the pending legislative requirements of floodplain harvesting. Novecom’s versatile smart telemetry solution, the SynaptiX Collector, has been adapted to meet the NSW Government’s specifications for a robust, reliable, tamper-proof telemetry metering device.
The locally designed and made SynaptiX LID is now available for installation by certified technicians. Known as Duly Qualified Persons (DQPs), these specially trained people are certified to install and validate these systems. Novecom System Engineer Brian O’Donnell is a trained DQP and can work with farmers and other DQPs to set up the required equipment.
The SynaptiX LID solution comes optionally as a complete single unit, including a mounting frame and battery-backup solar power supply. The LID is supplied as a sealed, maintenance-free unit with a pre-installed WaterNSW SIM for telemetry to the government’s data acquisition portal. Once the equipment is installed and connected to an approved storage meter, data will be transmitted automatically to the NSW Government data acquisition system.
What sets the SynaptiX LID apart from other LIDs on the market, beyond its reliability and functionality for floodplain harvesting, is that it is based on a flexible platform (the SynaptiX collector), designed in-house as a low power, robust unit for the current and foreseeable needs of Australian industry and agriculture.
The SynaptiX collector can be paired with a range of other sensors and meet different telemetry needs, to gather data on a variety of environmental factors, meaning the one product can perform multiple functions for the farmer.
