Keeping an eye on our water Freshwater is an essential part of our lives and having access to good, clean freshwater is essential to productive and sustainable land management. There are over 400,000 kilometres of rivers and streams in New Zealand. These are the lifeblood of our people and industry. What’s more they are an intrinsic part of our national identity. Yet river swimming, ishing and drinking water straight from the creek are experiences which despite our best e orts, are sadly no longer our legacy. Current Government regulations are changing around how agricultural activities impact rivers, lakes and streams, meaning water quality monitoring is essential. Without monitoring changes in real-time, it is impossible to understand water andmake changes to prevent degradation. RiverWatch is empowering farmers with rich real time data for their water quality that then allows them to measure the impact they have on a waterway, understand the impacts of weather events on their waterways from runo , use the data in collaboration with other data sets to The Waka & monitoring software, by RiverWatch optimise farmmanagement, meet consent conditions and report within FEP and FFP requirements. “In our experience farmers have the best intentions as custodians of the land; their future lies in the land’s sustainable future,” says RiverWatch CEO Peter Fullerton-Smith. “The RiverWatch Waka is designed to deliver commercial grade, real time usable data.” RiverWatch was founded by father and son farmers, Grant and James. The river on their Wairarapa farm was in a degraded state and they wanted to ind out why it was degrading and how they could ix it. There was no device or technology available to actually measure in real-time the change or impact that was occurring. So they set about developing the hardware and software to achieve this. “The RiverWatch Waka was designed from the ground up as a hardware and software solution. The product had to be robust and easy to use given the dynamic and challenging environment of New Zealand waterways. The Waka is easily deployed in 10 minutes by simply tethering it to the bank, turning it on and throwing it out into the water body like a duck decoy.” A rugby ball sized device, the Waka has ive sensors measuring a range of parameters that take readings at 15 minute intervals. The data is relayed over IoT (Internet of Things) connectivity via cellular or satellite connection. The software has AI intelligence to interpret the data that determines a health score for the water and displays it on the easy to understand dashboard. The data can also be integrated with any existing farmmanagement platform. “We’re very proud of the fact that we’re New Zealand designed, built and serviced. Our customers encompass a wide variety of stakeholders who have a shared interest and need to understand their water quality. They include farmers, catchment groups, Iwi, government bodies, construction and industry sectors.” The Waka was designed understanding the busy nature of farming and the ever growing compliance requirements. There is nothing else quite like it that gives us the opportunity to get ahead of regulation by monitoring for the good of our farms, our people and the products we sell. www.riverwatchsolutions.com pete@riverwatch.nz
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