Soutenance de thèse : Qingchuan ZHU

Low cost sensors for monitoring stormwater source control measures

Doctorant : Qingchuan ZHU

Laboratoire INSA : DEEP

Ecole doctorale : ED162 : Mécanique, Energétique, Génie Civil, Acoustique de Lyon

The large-scale deployment of low-cost sensors has the potential to revolutionize the field of urban hydrology monitoring, in particular for decentralised stormwater management systems, bringing expanded research scope and improved urban water management. However, this area is still in its infancy stage and needs a more systematic assessment framework to ensure data reliability and facilitate its implementation by researchers and practitioners.
To fill this gap, this thesis explores low-cost monitoring systems dedicated to stormwater source control measures (SCM). Several open-source low-cost sensors and systems have been calibrated and validated in DIY (Do It Yourself) aiming to assess the medium and long-term performance and identify maintenance problems. This thesis provides:
(i)    A review of low-cost meteorological, water quantity and quality sensors that are used in literature published in recent years, in a unified metrological framework considering numerous parameters.
(ii)    A low-cost meteorological sensors testbench on the INSA green roof platform and comparison between low-cost and conventional air humidity, wind speed and solar radiation sensors. Low-cost sensors are generally found to have comparable performance to conventional sensors, with the exception of pyranometers.
(iii)    The development of a low-cost stand-alone rain gauge station, with a method to calibrate low- cost tipping bucket rain gauges, and a comparison between low-cost and conventional rain gauges from summer to winter. Low-cost tipping bucket rain gauge WH-SP-RG and optical rain gauge RG- 15 have significant sensor-to-sensor variation.
(iv)    The development of a low-cost stand-alone water level monitoring station, with a method to calibrate low-cost pressure water level transmitters, and a one-year long operation assessment. The system developed works satisfactorily but is vulnerable to electromagnetic interference.
(v)    A low-cost turbidimeter testbench and a SEN0189 low-cost turbidimeter performance assessment, which shows significant sensor-to-sensor variation.