Seismic Dam Monitoring
The Challenge
In a seismically active region like New Zealand, ensuring the ongoing structural integrity of critical water infrastructure such as dams, reserviors and treatment facilities is both a public safety imperative and an operational priority.
Watercare identified an opportunity to proactively enhance its infrastructure resilience by deploying Viotel’s smart IoT technologies to reduce reliance on schedule inspections, improve system visibility and support predictive decision-making under all conditions - including earthquake events.
The Solution
Viotel is engaged by Watercare New Zealand to provide seismic monitoring and structural health analysis to create a city-wide smart network, incorporating embedded sensors to monitor, measure, transmit, and receive data, improving network reliability and service quality through predictive modelling.
Due to the criticality of the system and remote nature of many of the sites, Viotel deployed a robust structural health monitoring system that incorporates:
Embedded accelerometers at dam sites to capture ground acceleration in real-time with trigger alerts set for immediate notification of ground movement.
Dual layer communication via satellite fall-back connectivity to ensure data delivery if primary cellular networks fail at the time of a seismic event.
Local Wi-Fi mesh to capacitate all sensors to communicate to the satellite-enabled node. Thus dramatically reducing the satellite connectivity costs.
Ruggedised, weatherproof, lightning-proof, and tamper-proof equipment
Independent solar power systems.
Integration with Viotel’s cloud-based platform providing real-time alerts, remote diagnostics and historical trends. Accessible to Watercare engineers and emergency teams via the secure dashboard.
"We especially like the ease of operations and reliability of their equipment together with the data insights we get out of the installed systems"
- Aaron VanBreugel, Dam Safety Engineer, Watercare
Key Benefits
By partnering with Viotel, Watercare is transforming their infrastructure into a future-ready smart network. The benefits of this approach extend well beyond seismic risk management, creating measurable gains across, safety, operational efficiency and asset performance.
Real-Time Seismic Intelligence
Instant access to live structural and ground motion data enables faster, data-driven decisions during and immediately after seismic events-reducing the liability gap and improving public safety outcomes.
Continuous Structural Health Monitoring of Aging Infrastructure
Ongoing data collection helps track the condition of older assets over time, identifying early signs of fatigue, stress, or deformation before they escalate into critical failures.
Lower Operational Costs
By reducing the reliance on manual inspections-particularly for remote or hazardous locations-Watercare lowers long-term OPEX while improving monitoring coverage
Operational Continuity Through Redundancy
Integrated satellite communication ensures uninterrupted data flow during network outages, enabling continuity of monitoring even under disaster scenarios.
Accelerated Emergency Response
Automated alerts and diagnostics reduce the time between an event and response, enabling targeted inspections and more effective mobilisation of emergency teams.
Predictive Maintenance and Asset Lifecycle Extension
Historical trend data and predictive modelling enable Watercare to prioritise upgrades, extend asset lifespan, and avoid unnecessary repairs-delivering long-term ROI.
Scalable Infrastructure for a Smart Water Network
Modular and cloud-connected by design, the system positions Watercare to expand its smart infrastructure strategy across all water assets with minimal friction.
Learn more about how Viotel can help you optimise your asset network with data-driven decision-making.