Smart Flow

Challenge details

The Water Management Authority maintains a network of monitoring stations on Luxembourg's streams and rivers. This network is constantly being expanded and modernised. Currently, data is collected at 42 stations.

Based on these data, a water balance model is run to calculate forecasts (water level, discharge).

As with all forecasts, the quality, station coverage and data resolution of the input data is crucial. By now, discharges are determined by manual discharge measurements for the whole spectrum of occurring water levels, so on an irregular and long-term base. In order to improve and validate the related rating curves the idea came up to develop a solution of getting high resolution discharge data, similar to already existing market solutions but more on a camera-based system to combine the advantages of recording pictures of the actual on-site situation.

The work consists of continuously analysing the still and moving images of various cameras in order to obtain a usable surface flow velocity and calculate an average velocity and the discharge of the cross section of the river. This data will be used to validate measured time series over the whole water level measurement spectrum.

All data must be provided with corresponding time stamps.

The data are divided into two groups:

• Water levels

The water level values at the staff gauges visible in the pictures have to be determined and translated into consistent water level time series.

• Flow velocity

Measure the surface flow velocity of the water in different sections using moving images and video files.

Calculate a mean velocity on the basis of the k-factor (roughness).

Calculate the discharge values.