TECHNICAL NOTE: WATER LEVEL RECORDER WITH ARDUINO PLATFORM

Abstract

Brazilian hydrological measurement networks rarely cover all places in a watershed, therefore there is a great lack of stream?ow data. This may be due to the costs for acquisition and maintenance of water level measuring devices. This work aimed to construct and validate a low cost automatic water level meter. A potentiometer coupled to a ?oat and pulley system was used, as well as an Arduino microcontroller board for data acquisition and a clock module RTC DS1307 for tracking reading times. In the Arduino environment, a program was created to signal reading from the transducer, to convert the electrical signal when in water level, to allocate the time readings and to store information in long-term memory. The equipment provided precise and accurate readings (R² = 0.99, r = 0.99, d = 0.99). The use of the Arduino platform to acquire data for stream?ow variables is a good alternative, given its low cost and easy programming. This platform is recommended for studies regarding water levels and water monitoring in channels, dams and streams, with prior calibration and studies related to the locations to be used.