Monitoring of air and water quality at Paliastomi lake in Kolkheti National Park

To fulfill one of the main objectives of the BSB ECO MONITORING project, such as development of a smart platform for collecting, processing and analyzing environmental data, biodiversity data, air quality data, river water quality data, collected through surveillance drones and smart wireless sensor networks, SABUKO, PP4, installed air and water monitoring systems in August, 2021.

Recent advances in communication and sensor technology have catalyzed progress in remote monitoring capabilities for water and air quality. The monitoring of pollution level in urban areas must be considered one of the most important services for the citizens, as the presence of high levels of pollutants are correlated with health issues. Typically the air and water pollution is monitored by expensive stations, usually equipped with multiple instruments. Moreover, complex and repetitive calibration and maintenance operations are requested in order to obtain highly accurate measurements. In the framework of the project – “Joint Monitoring for Environmental Protection in BSB countries” – Sabuko had financial opportunity to buy high quality air and water monitoring systems for  Kolkheti National Park and mount them at Paliastomi lake, at the ranger’s shelter. The decision was after discussions and weighing up pros and cons of potential sites across the Park. These are the most important aspects of the chosen place for systems:

• Safe site;
• Within boundaries of Protected Areas;
• Good GSM signal strength;
• Required additional needs (such as electricity) required for installation of this station;
• Accessible place for monthly and quarterly maintenance works;
• On the border with settlements and city Poti (visible human (or anthropogenic) impact on the environment)

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) can be defined as a self-configured and infrastructure-less wireless networks to monitor physical or environmental conditions, such as temperature, sound, vibration, pressure, motion or pollutants, water parameters and to cooperatively pass their data through the network to a main location or sink where the data can be observed and analyzed.

The installed equipment embedded web server for data visualization, including cloud access for 2 years.

Air quality monitoring AQ Guard collects the following data:  PM1, PM2.5, PM4, PM10, TSP, Cn, Temperature and Relative Humidity, with IADS compact, ambient protection, fine dust professional package.

Water quality system is represented by datalogger with enclosure, mast, solar panel, charger, backup battery, gsm modem and omnidirectional antenna dissolved oxygen, ph/orp, conductivity, turbidity and nitrate sensors including delivery, installation, testing, integration and commissioning. On 31^st of March, SABUKO and the expert on systems for diagnosis and maintenance of the obtained water and air monitoring systems held training for Kolkheti National Park administration personnel – director, chief of administration and specialists as well, including rangers and interested stakeholders. The training was held outside, near Paliastomi lake in order to demonstrate the systems, maintenance process and be safe regards to COVID-19.