Reservoir Level Monitoring System

What is reservoir level monitoring?

Reservoir level monitoring is the continuous measurement of the water level in a reservoir, with the reading reported remotely instead of read by hand. A sensor at the site records the level on a schedule, holds the history, and alarms when the level crosses a threshold you set. The reservoir might be an irrigation company’s storage, a town’s raw-water pond, a ranch’s largest dam, or one of several sites a district checks on a route. In every case the job is the same: know the level without driving to it, and know the moment it moves the wrong way.

Two concerns share the reading. On the supply side, the worry is low water: a reservoir drawing down faster than the season allows, or a delivery that has to be cut short. On the safety side, the worry is high water: a storm pushing the level toward the spillway while the person who would check it is somewhere else.

Who uses a reservoir level monitoring system

• Irrigation companies and ditch companies managing storage against water orders and a shrinking season.
• Small water districts and towns with a raw-water reservoir or storage pond that is not on the SCADA screen, or was and lost its wire.
• Ranches and farms whose largest water is a big dam or a catchment basin rather than a tank.
• Conservation districts and land managers tracking several sites from one account instead of a route of physical checks.

How the system works

Two ways to sense the level

Meterra measures open water two ways, and the site decides which:

• Submerged pressure. The Dam Level Monitor, from $499 is a sealed pressure sensor that sits in the water and reads the depth above it, up to about 330 ft (100 m) of water column. It keeps reading under ice, and because the cable carries the reading back to the communication box on dry ground, the sensor can sit where the level actually matters, not where the bank happens to be.
• Non-contact ultrasonic. The Tank Level Sensor mounts above the water on a post or structure and measures the distance down to the surface, roughly 10 inches to 23 ft. Nothing goes in the water, so there is nothing to foul or pull for cleaning. It is the choice where the site never freezes and you would rather keep the water clear of equipment.

Both report level, trend, and low- and high-water alarms into the same app, so a district can run a pressure sensor on the reservoir and ultrasonic sensors on its tanks and see every site on one screen.

Cable length is reach, not depth

For a reservoir, the spot worth measuring is rarely at the bank, so the order usually turns on cable length rather than depth rating. The cable runs from wherever the sensor sits back to wherever the box can mount, on the dam crest, a headwall, or a post on shore. We stock 10, 50, and 165 ft cables and build any length to order up to about 330 ft (100 m). Tell us where the sensor needs to sit and where the box can go, and we will confirm the sensor, the mounting, and the cable length before anything ships.

Connectivity, power, and alarms

The sensor reports over Verizon NB-IoT cellular: no power, no Wi-Fi, no hub at the reservoir, only rural cell coverage. For genuinely off-grid sites with no signal, satellite is the alternative; coverage at the specific site is the thing to confirm before buying. Power is a 2+ year battery or solar, so there is nothing to wire and little to maintain.

You set a low-water threshold and a high-water threshold and the sensor alarms the moment the level crosses either one. The Meterra app and dashboard hold the live level, the trend over days, weeks, or a season, and CSV export for reporting. Where an operator already runs SCADA, the reading can feed it; see SCADA integration.

The same sensors in the field

At a mountain resort in Utah, a submerged pressure sensor on a 15 ft cable went into the first of the resort’s sewer ponds on July 15, 2026, and has read correctly ever since, feeding the resort’s existing SCADA. For the first time the operators can see how much runoff a storm puts into the pond and how far the water comes up afterward. The full write-up is the Powder Mountain job.

In Huntsville, Utah, the town’s million-gallon storage tank went dark when its buried SCADA line was cut, and the rewire quote was $50,000 to $80,000. One wireless Meterra ultrasonic sensor put the tank back on screen for a fraction of that. The Huntsville case study is the whole story, and the same approach applies to a reservoir that has never had a wire at all.

How to choose a reservoir level monitoring system

• Sensing technology. Submerged pressure where surfaces freeze or the measuring point is out in the water; non-contact ultrasonic where you would rather keep nothing in the water.
• Cable reach. Ask what cable length a vendor will build, not just what depth the sensor is rated for.
• Low and high alarms. Confirm the system alarms on both. Supply needs low water; safety needs high water.
• Connectivity and coverage. Match cellular or satellite to the signal at the actual site, and account for the connectivity plan in the total.
• Power and maintenance. A multi-year battery or solar keeps a remote reservoir genuinely hands-off.
• Integration. If you run SCADA or a dashboard already, confirm the reading can reach it.
• Multi-site view. For more than one reservoir, tank, or dam, every site should report into one account.

Why Meterra

The practical advantage is the same field-proven level monitoring, in whichever form fits the site: a submerged pressure sensor with cable built to the reservoir, or a non-contact ultrasonic sensor above it. Either one reports level, trend, and low- and high-water alarms over cellular, on its own power, for years, with the price posted in writing and a 60-day money-back guarantee behind it.